Maybe I should write Bergie right away, but I wanted to sample opinion and experience first.
In a prior post I used an eight-letter word that means “utterly deplorable,” roughly. The latter four letters were “able,” and the first four were the common d-word that in three letters refers to a reservoir.
My post came out as ***able as soon as I viewed it, so I suspect there is an autocensor at work.
I try to be respectful, but I have seen people use the well-known three letter word to refer to buttocks, not beasts of burden. Ditto if something [“blows”] (I won’t use that particular s-word here, but babies do it all the time). I tend not to use those terms unless I am VERY angry, but it doesn’t bother me if other people do.
I guess it’s a matter of consistency. What manner of Autocensor has this site if it will blip d**nable. My gracious goodness! Jeezie peezie! We’re all adults here and the extra insult was that my apparently [“deplorable”] word has never been considered obscene or risky, not even in church.
Besides, I don’t recall people worrying much about [“Hades”] or [“d***”] since the middle 1960s.
My experience has been that the censoring occurs at the sending end, rather than at the “Trains” end, and it has affected numerous words where a possibly offensive word is contained within a larger compound word. It happens to me if I send from my work e-mail, but some service providers might have this function built in somewhere. You can bypass this problem by mispelling the word, but that is sort of pointless.
Well, maybe so, Peter, but not too long ago I reviewed a really raunchy book and my own MS Word program had no trouble with all the “Banned in Boston” phraseology.
Got thru to the newspaper quite all right.
It would probably be your internet service provider or internet browser, rather than your computer. There have been plenty of words worse than that one that have made it on here.
I take exception to the fact that we are all adults here. There are a lot of young people on this forum.
But the point is, some people don’t enjoy reading **** (swear words). You aren’t in a vacuum; you are saying things that are read all over the world. Not everyone wants to read what you obviously consider fine prose! And don’t say “don’t read it!” The reader is into a subject and enjoying it, when they get into the middle of a lot of upper case figures. The thought may be great, but they must quit reading just because someone chooses to express themself in this way? That’s not fair!
And why are you so angry? This is conversation, not war.
Just to add my 2 cents worth on the subject. Over my working career, I’ve worked on labor gangs, in very nasty factory environments, etc., with folks who could not complete a sentence without a four letter word or two in it. Sad to say, I developed as filthy a mouth as the rest. However, as I got older, more educated and exposed to being with the more gentle members of our society, I found myself moving away from such types of expression. Now, although not a saint by any means, and not particularly offended by crude language, I prefer not to see or hear it and try not to use it. I’ve noticed that there are indeed many young men and ladies of school age that are interested in trains and enjoy the forums as much as I do. Though I have no doubt that they can cope with it, I personally would not use crude expression around my grandsons.
'Nuff said!
Let the censors do their job. We all know what letters “***” stand for. We really don’t need to put it in print.
Swearing has it’s place, and is more useful if not overused. For example, when I would swear in the shop back in highschool (where I spent most of my time) everyone would stop and look. Like when someone was wrapped in the drill press…
I think that is pretty cool that I can get my point across otherwise without relying on the shock value of swearing. But sadly for most, it doensn’t have shockvalue. *** shame.
I’m not one to swear, but I hear it all the time. All of my friends swear, adults swear, you hear it everywhere. So, I’m for the censoring of swears on this website; it is a good way to get away from it.
But, I do agree with smalling_60626, the word he typed was not a swear. But, that is just my opinion. Just like “D***ation,” I do not believe that to be a swear, nor the saying “Heck and darnation” (put lightly).
I’m of two minds about it – I do feel that in the “bad old days” of movie censorship, certain risque or even taboo topics could be dealt with better by indirection, not swearing. (Anybody still alive who has seen the 1946 movie GILDA with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford? Hot!).
On the other hand, I kind of resented it in the original (1962) MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE when that excellent actor, Lawrence Harvey, had to describe his utter loathing of someone with a vehement “[He’s a] son of a . . . numbskull.”
But yes, it’s best to be conservative if you don’t know better.
“There’s a word for you ladies, but it isn’t used in polite society . . . outside of a kennel.”
– Joan Crawford in MGM’s 1940 THE WOMEN.
Guys, guys, guys, you’re preaching to the choir. I had no “profane intent.” uzurpator used the word I had typed three times in his first line and got it thru! To add insult to injury, I wasn’t using the word as a swear word–nor even as a word! It was the first four letters of a d word that divides on the “m” – let me see – maybe I can get away with "dayum"nation?
I have never advocated for the right to cuss up a storm or use blue language. Far from it. I say things like “ticked” or “p’oed” although the literal spelling out of the latter passes muster on these forums, apparently.
Anyone who still thinks that I am in the running for the “Sultan of Dirty Talk” ought to look at my original post again. I don’t even mind the auto-blipping of dirty words, but I do object to the senseless excoriation of words that happen to look mildly offensive when used alone, but not when that combination of letters just happens to begin another word!
Sheesh! Put me down for clean speech and clear thought! Okay?
If ya really want to get your point across you just have to outthink the autocensor by using hiphenation, substitutions, and such tricks, your brain will fill in the missing or not quite right spellings.
Example:
Using George Carlins infamous “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television”