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I've gone through life with a surname that euphemistically refers to an intimate part of male anatomy. While I've never had problems with it (well, technologic

I've gone through life with a surname that euphemistically refers to an intimate part of male anatomy. While I've never had problems with it (well, technological problems, at least) -- this writer with a slightly different spelling, has: https://twitter.com/natalieweiner/status/1034533630071193602?lang=en https://twitter.com/natalieweiner/status/1034533630071193602...

Bartweiss 8y ago
That entry could probably get a sub-entry: "Well, I can assume this list of long, language-specific bad words doesn't have any names in it!" I'm sure a lot of the most common issues are internationalization problems where short words arise in several places - Fanny and Wang come to mind as English names that are only inappropriate in certain countries. But if you're matching substrings, literally anything offensive is going to show up somewhere. My favorite example is that 'specialist' includes 'cialis', which is enough to trip some spam filters.
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Interesting that the one pronounced "winer" has problems, where the "weener" doesn't. Perhaps someone not familiar with German, it is the second letter that is pronounced.
- jaredwiener 8y ago
  I'm not German -- this ends up being another, though unrelated, constant difficulty with this name. (It's pronounced like "Whiner.") Family legend holds that when my great grandfather reached Canada and told the immigration agent his Lithuanian name, the agent replied, "I don't know how to spell that. I'm writing down 'Wiener'." Strangers will insist we are pronouncing the family name wrong, though I firmly hold the position that we can pronounce it however we want, since it's our name.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Hmm, sounds easier to change the spelling rather than spend a lifetime working against standard expectations.
mdpopescu 8y ago
Ha! I have a friend who emigrated to Canada; his family name was Penus (pronounced Pen-woosh). He had to change it :)

Bartweiss 8y ago

That entry could probably get a sub-entry: "Well, I can assume this list of long, language-specific bad words doesn't have any names in it!" I'm sure a lot of the most common issues are internationalization problems where short words arise in several places - Fanny and Wang come to mind as English names that are only inappropriate in certain countries. But if you're matching substrings, literally anything offensive is going to show up somewhere. My favorite example is that 'specialist' includes 'cialis', which is enough to trip some spam filters.

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Interesting that the one pronounced "winer" has problems, where the "weener" doesn't. Perhaps someone not familiar with German, it is the second letter that is pronounced.

jaredwiener 8y ago
I'm not German -- this ends up being another, though unrelated, constant difficulty with this name. (It's pronounced like "Whiner.") Family legend holds that when my great grandfather reached Canada and told the immigration agent his Lithuanian name, the agent replied, "I don't know how to spell that. I'm writing down 'Wiener'." Strangers will insist we are pronouncing the family name wrong, though I firmly hold the position that we can pronounce it however we want, since it's our name.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  Hmm, sounds easier to change the spelling rather than spend a lifetime working against standard expectations.

mdpopescu 8y ago

Ha! I have a friend who emigrated to Canada; his family name was Penus (pronounced Pen-woosh). He had to change it :)