My favorite assignment from NYU all semester
Linguistics reading:
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/11/the_most_obscen.html
DILBERT.BLOG by Scott Adams
The Most Obscene Letter>b>
If you ask me, the most obscene letter in the alphabet is the asterisk. It appears in almost every naughty word you see in print, from f*ck to p*ss to m*th*rf*ck*ng c*cks*ck*r. You can’t even pronounce the word “asterisk” without saying *ss. That smutty little character is attracted to obscenity like flies to sh*t.
To be fair and balanced, it should be noted that the asterisk protects you from seeing naked cuss words that would otherwise blind you and put you on the slippery slope to porn addiction. But when you cover a naughty word’s turgid genitalia with an asterisk, no one knows what the f*ck you’re trying to say. That’s why it’s totally safe!
Some folks reading this blog might wonder how the asterisk protects them, since theoretically you could do your own research and discover that sh*thead does not mean asking a guy named Thead to be quiet. But it’s a lot of work to do that research, and few people are willing to put in the time.
Let me explain it this way: Naked naughty words can destroy your brain and also society as a whole. However - and one would think this is obvious - It’s completely safe to THINK naughty words. And it’s safe to cause other people to think naughty words. But if you spell those naughty words without the asterisk loin cloth to protect your victims, you’re a danger to society. I know this to be true because I heard it from lots of people who have sh*t-for-brains.
There are plenty of scientific studies showing that exposure to naked cuss words is a leading cause of brain rot and higher taxes. Those studies have been published in the prestigious New England Urinal of Mufficine.
The only question that remains is why you read all the way to the bottom of this post if you are so offended by this sort of thing?
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003791.html
November 19, 2006
Expletive inserted
No word taboo at The New Yorker, it would seem. Bill Buford casually drops the occasionally attested colloquialism lo and fucking behold (184 Google hits) into a description of his thoughts as he hides behind a bush and watches a male turkey appear in response to a slate-scratching device that makes an imitation of a female turkey call:
... I heard a deep slow trilling. A gobble. Lo and fucking behold. I peeked, ever so slowly, through the leaves of my bush and saw him. Whoa! A gobbler, puffed and tail spread, looking like the NBC logo. Wow! I'd called him in! I'd done it!
The New Yorker arrives in American homes just like any other periodical, and has all sorts of cartoons and ads that might encourage kids to look at it. It's puzzling to me why, when The New Yorker can risk dropping the prime obscene expletive of the English language in mid fucking idiom in a feature article about turkeys, so many newspapers are so astonishingly coy that they can't mention shit without at least a couple of asterisks. (I guess I mean that last clause in both its literal and idiomatic senses.)
[Geoffrey K. Pullum]
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/11/the_most_obscen.html
DILBERT.BLOG by Scott Adams
The Most Obscene Letter>b>
If you ask me, the most obscene letter in the alphabet is the asterisk. It appears in almost every naughty word you see in print, from f*ck to p*ss to m*th*rf*ck*ng c*cks*ck*r. You can’t even pronounce the word “asterisk” without saying *ss. That smutty little character is attracted to obscenity like flies to sh*t.
To be fair and balanced, it should be noted that the asterisk protects you from seeing naked cuss words that would otherwise blind you and put you on the slippery slope to porn addiction. But when you cover a naughty word’s turgid genitalia with an asterisk, no one knows what the f*ck you’re trying to say. That’s why it’s totally safe!
Some folks reading this blog might wonder how the asterisk protects them, since theoretically you could do your own research and discover that sh*thead does not mean asking a guy named Thead to be quiet. But it’s a lot of work to do that research, and few people are willing to put in the time.
Let me explain it this way: Naked naughty words can destroy your brain and also society as a whole. However - and one would think this is obvious - It’s completely safe to THINK naughty words. And it’s safe to cause other people to think naughty words. But if you spell those naughty words without the asterisk loin cloth to protect your victims, you’re a danger to society. I know this to be true because I heard it from lots of people who have sh*t-for-brains.
There are plenty of scientific studies showing that exposure to naked cuss words is a leading cause of brain rot and higher taxes. Those studies have been published in the prestigious New England Urinal of Mufficine.
The only question that remains is why you read all the way to the bottom of this post if you are so offended by this sort of thing?
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003791.html
November 19, 2006
Expletive inserted
No word taboo at The New Yorker, it would seem. Bill Buford casually drops the occasionally attested colloquialism lo and fucking behold (184 Google hits) into a description of his thoughts as he hides behind a bush and watches a male turkey appear in response to a slate-scratching device that makes an imitation of a female turkey call:
... I heard a deep slow trilling. A gobble. Lo and fucking behold. I peeked, ever so slowly, through the leaves of my bush and saw him. Whoa! A gobbler, puffed and tail spread, looking like the NBC logo. Wow! I'd called him in! I'd done it!
The New Yorker arrives in American homes just like any other periodical, and has all sorts of cartoons and ads that might encourage kids to look at it. It's puzzling to me why, when The New Yorker can risk dropping the prime obscene expletive of the English language in mid fucking idiom in a feature article about turkeys, so many newspapers are so astonishingly coy that they can't mention shit without at least a couple of asterisks. (I guess I mean that last clause in both its literal and idiomatic senses.)
[Geoffrey K. Pullum]