MANY of us grew up with Love Hearts.

The fizzy, tablet-shaped sweets constituted pre-pubescent foreplay during my childhood, coming in a variety of fruit flavours inscribed with innocent messages like Be My Love, Just Hug Me, Dream Girl and You’re Mine.

What I certainly don’t recall is my love offering telling the girl of my dreams to go forth and multiply, suggest I might be homophobic or any other such profanities.

This is, of course, the 21st century and sadly the English language has been mangled and abused to the point where swearing is rarely shocking any more and textspeak has become the younger generation’s favoured form of communication.

We will probably never know what happened in the place where the bags of sweets containing the rude messages were created, although PMS is a truly appropriate name given the strong messages.

But it does take me back to a good few years ago when a disgruntled departing newspaper sub-editor’s last act was to publish a letter in the paper where the first word of each paragraph spelled out a very clear – and unpleasant – message to his editor.

If the culprit is no longer with the company making these sweets – having signed off with this profane flourish – you have to pity his remaining colleagues currently sifting through several million sweets for his final messages...