******** to you, too!
Jeff actually took a break from pontificating (I joke! I joke! He never takes a break :o) the other day to celebrate his manly superiority over a leaking toilet. Rock on, brother! Such seemingly small victories we men will remember with a smile on our death beds ("Me the mighty Zog! Me conquer woolly carburetor!").
But I didn't come here to talk about Jeff's manliness - he's done enough of that himself.
I'm here to talk about what I presume to be an automatic filtering system, namely on his blog comments. One of the responses said:
I've done the whole ball**** thing before.Now, manly men will recognize that what was elided was the second half of "ballcock" (since Jeff is using Blogger and so am I, it will be interesting to see if the whole word gets spelled out in my post, since it got snipped in comments on his - go look at the link if above it does, because when I wrote this I DID spell it out. And I type it again and again - "ballcock - ballcock - ballcock").
Here's my thing with such failed attempts at eliding "bad words". "Ball" is bad, too - at least as a verb. At least if you think such verbs compounded with such nouns are bad things. So shouldn't "ballcock", wimped down to "ball****", have ultimately been reduced to "********"? Or was the original commenter too wimpy to write the second half? Dunno. Don't care.
What I do know is automated censorship systems suck for this very reason. Because "ball****" is ludicrous, and "********" would've been even more so, except perhaps more poetic in its Puritanical wildcarding:
I've done the whole ******** thing before.That's WAY better, don't you think? What potential! That sentence could go anywhere!
So, what whole "********" thing have you done before?
8 comments:
When I ran a BBS, the software had the ability to replace any words in posts with any other words you wanted. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes, we would do just the opposite of what you're talking about here -- replace a normal word with a worty dird.
I'm pretty sure Blogger doesn't censor out any bad words in the comments, at least not by default. Maybe there's an option to turn that on or off in the settings?
Ballcock. Ramrod. Rectory. Uranus. Bushmaster. Masticate. Penal. Crotchety. Titicaca. Bangkok. Jactation. Blowhole. Uvula. Coccyx. Gesticulate. Joystick. Cockchafer. Titmouse. Kumquat. Manhole. Rimshot. Arsole. Hoary. Shuttlecock. Vibraphone. Asinine. Jaculate. Backhoe. Cockamamie. Pianist.
CH,
Horehound.
Yeah, I didn't really think it was a software filter, but more a human one (whether Jeff or the commenter, I dunno). But either way, it makes me wonder why do we insist on filtering ourselves to the point of insanity? All that's left is then is a bunch of mealy mush. Sorta like the Victorians using "dark meat" and "white meat" to avoid saying "thighs" and "breasts" ("Mmmm, baby, do I love your white meat!")
Filters make me laugh, because there is always a way around it. Of course, I know people who are offended by even the mild words. It is funniest when something like ballcock is edited as a bad word. C'mon, give me a break.
What a bunch of ****.
:)
I think it is ********** to ****** ******* in the ******** if *** ***** the **** ****** ******* ****.
Ditto what Erin said :)
I went and read your friend Jeff's toilet fixing post (which, coincidentally is what I spent my Saturday doing). I have a question. Maybe I should post it on my own blog, but I am wondering why it is that men need so much praise and assurance from women?
Heidi,
I ended up figuring out the comment was self-filtered by the commenter, but that just made it stand out more! I mean, "WTF, dude?" (or should that be, "WT*, dude?" :o)
And yeah, it is a bunch of ****.
Erin,
I *****.
Barbara,
That answer is intuitively self-obvious. Because we have fragile egos.
And seriously, because we're EXPECTED, as guys, to be good at everything handyman/mechanic related, even if we've never touched a wrench or a hammer before. So with the weight of that expectation always hovering over us, when we actually accomplish something like replacing a toilet (which I did a few months ago), we want to shout, "I DID it!" OTOH, when we screw up a garage door while trying to replace a broken spring (which I did a few weeks ago), we then sulk around for weeks afterward, and don't even want to look at the damned door, let alone try to fix it again, meanwhile slapping our heads mentally over and over ("What a dummy! Can't you do anything? Wimp!")
Jim, thanks. I do understand what you are saying and its a good reminder. I was thinking of a few guys I know that want to be praised for things like taking out the trash or doing their own laundry....stuff that requires no skill, but their motivation for it seems that they want to hear "oh thank you honey you are so wonderful for taking out the trash". Not saying they should not be thanked....its just odd. I think its unfair to have expectations that all men can fix things and all women can cook (I can't cook, don't want to cook and will never cook).
Barbara,
I understand. And I hear about those types of males, but I've never encountered one. I can cook, but am not that handy. On the other hand, I am more domestic than anyone I've ever lived with as an adult. Just a thing, I guess.
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