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As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do tha

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this was a more correct way to put it, and instead of making a huge deal out of them we instead taught them what is and what isn’t appropriate. You’d think this would result in them using those potty words all the time. Nope. I mean mostly no. Currently one of them asked one of the family members to stop using the word fuck because it makes her uncomfortable. The other one and I were playing Minecraft and I tried to explain the Nether to her as hell and she was like “wait is that a word I can say?” which led to us discussing when it’s ok and not ok to use that word. My girlfriend explained what “boss bitch” means to the kids recently in terms of dog mushing. Some amusing stories: my oldest when she was in daycare made a pact with her classmates to go into the bathroom and say curse words because the teachers wouldn’t hear them in there. They even had someone on lookout when they did this. Words used were “poop” and “doodoo”. That same kid when she was 4-5 came up to mom and asked “I really want to say a curse word”. Mom sent her to her room to say it no more than five times and come back. She did and that was that. The other kid accidentally busted out with a periodic “what is this bullshit?” when she was much younger. She does not curse currently. Words are words and censoring “bad” words is silly. You can’t censor meaning. “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. Especially if it censors words like “associating” or “Cummings” or “arsenal”. This is just fodder for the unnecessary censorship memes.

deleted 7y ago
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searchableguy 7y ago
While I am not for any kind of censorship, if someone doesn't know swear words, would they be able to use them? Is swearing orthogonal to human nature? I had known few kids who didn't know what swearing was and they never did anything similar to swearing. Is there value in swearing? If not, what's the argument for letting kids learn about it? It's an interesting thought. Would limiting the vocabulary lead to people expressing less. Is there any controlled experiment on similar? Can this affect complex thoughts or they can still be conveyed?
- bshimmin 7y ago
  You're looking for the wonderful-sounding "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis", which is a great thing to trot out at dinner parties (if those ever become a thing again).
  - Freak_NL 7y ago
    I guess I can see the added value of swearing in Klingon — kind of the reverse of bowdlerization.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      You could have wedged a couple of a Klingon swear words in there to give us something to start with. The only Klingon I know is q'pla (sp?).
      - D-Coder 7y ago
        Fikanta filo de hundino! (Not Klingon, tio estas aĉa aro da merderoj.)
- akdor1154 7y ago
  Tangential, but I recall a pop sci write up of a paper that claimed the experience of pain was lessened if the experiencer was allowed to swear. Fact-checking this claim is left as an exercise for the reader, sorry.
  - parenthesis 7y ago
    I think I tend to say 'ow' very loudly, and then start swearing at the inanimate object whose fault it clearly was.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    Sounds correct to me. Swearing (with whatever words) takes your mind of your stubbed toe. I don’t think the actual words are relevant to the act of swearing.
xwdv 7y ago
No, you can censor anything, even meaning. If censorship doesn't work, it's because you're not using enough of it.
Mindwipe 7y ago
I think it's more a joke to get people to type rude words than an actual censorship mechanic. Much like funny film clips where people bleep innocuous phrases to make them sound sweary. That's the joke, see?
jawns 7y ago
Around middle school, I decided that I would stop using swear words, because it seemed like getting myself in trouble by letting one slip out at an inappropriate time was more of a bother than just avoiding them and coming up with more inventive ways to express myself. Refraining from curse words has been part of my character ever since, and just about everybody who knows me knows that I don't swear. And you know what? I have never missed those words. I have some of the most foul-mouthed friends you can imagine, and the words don't shock or scandalize me. They're just not a part of my vocabulary. I have never, so far as I know, suffered a single negative consequence because I don't curse. But the benefits have gone far beyond never getting detention at school or grounded by my parents because of the use of salty language. For instance, it's led me to stretch myself creatively when I really need to express exasperation or any other strong emotion. And it's led me to notice that some swear words, far from being innocuous, can be really debasing, and to have empathy for those on the receiving end.
- hiccuphippo 7y ago
  ESL here. At school one teacher told us using swear words only show your lack of knowledge for better words. I took that to heart and the very few times I've used them, I really had no other option. However I've noticed swear words come more easily to me in English and don't feel as harsh as when I hear them in Spanish. I wonder if it's my lack of vocabulary.
  - kandaBear 7y ago
    There's actually been interesting research done about that idea, that people who swear have a smaller vocabulary or are less fluent. It seems that the opposite is actually true¹, people who swear are actually demonstrating a broader fluency. Worth a read! ¹ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S038800011400151X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03880...
    - dylan604 7y ago
      I've never given credence to the "cursing == less articulate" either. It's knowing the impact dropping a curse can have to get people's attention. Plus, sometimes, people are just too dense to get how bothered you are, but drop a colorful phrase, and they tend to get the point. Like the George Carlin bit, take a word like "incredible" and it's a nice word. Stick fuck in the middle of it to make "infuckingcredible" and it's an even better word. Fanfuckingtastic > fantastic and is much more impactful than "most fantastic". Having said all of that, I have never told someone FU. That's my line.
Digit-Al 7y ago
From a cursory examination of the site I deduce this is either a piece of satire or a silly joke (maybe both). So relax, this is not a serious effort to censor :-) (Also I commend your child rearing technique vis-a-vis swearing. Seems a very sensible approach.)
abtinf 7y ago
I went the other way with my kids, greatly expanding the scope of curse words. Words are primarily tools of cognition—that is, they are how we hold concepts and use them to reason about the world. When we use words with other people, we are relying on their reason. Curse words are bad for human life because they don’t mean anything in most contexts they are used. “Fuck” can mean sex, but usually it’s emoting a non-specific range of emotions (as in “fuck you” or “infuckingcredible”). Most of its meaning comes from the sound it makes—you might as well bark and purr. The only time a curse word is acceptable is when understanding the emotional state of the speaker is necessary to understand their words, but the speaker is unable to alter their vocal tone in the required manner. Counter-intuitively, this means that curse words may have a valid use in clarifying the meaning of written text. But this is very rare. Using this standard, all euphemisms for curse words are equivalent in terms of their damage to human thinking—darnit is just as bad as dammit. The only difference is etiquette and manners; one is considered to be much less rude.
- progman32 7y ago
  Interesting take. Can you explain more about why you hold the opinion that sounds that are meaningless are bad for human life, to the point of being unacceptable? In my experience a good sigh or happy noise are net positives.
  - abtinf 7y ago
    Curse words are bad for human life because they seem like tools of cognition, but they aren’t. When used as words, they can only confuse and mislead you. However, sounds that aren’t words can be very useful—they are perceptual evidence that we use in our reasoning. We identify groups of perceptions by differentiating them from other perceptions, integrate them into concepts based on their similarities, and assign words to represent all of concretes of that group. So you have many “noise” experiences from yourself and in human interactions, identify some as happy, and now you have a useful new tool of cognition in the form of “happy noise”. With additional experience, you can refine that into many sub-concepts, like “pleasurable moan”, “contented sigh”, “silly giggle”, and so forth. Curse words are different because they are just noise. If I say “happy noise”, you know broadly what I’m referring to. But if I say the word “fuck”, you have no idea what that word means—you would have to make guesses either based on the surrounding words that have semantic meaning, or based on how I said it using your conceptual knowledge of the kinds of noises. That’s why you see curse words used in every kind of context as undifferentiated noise. With my kids, I tell them that using any word they don’t understand is a curse word. It hurts their own life if they make the noise of advanced words they don’t yet understand, because it introduces ambiguity into their thinking. For more information on the role of precepts and concepts in human cognition, I suggest reading “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”.
anon102010 7y ago
I don't curse. I used to do lots of consulting work. Not cursing never seemed to hold me back. I also found I tended to be less angry then the often times it seemed idiotic folks who were always having big disasters and cursing. In my line of work people were paying to get problems solved, not to hire someone who rants and raves. And some of the best money is in solving problems that others stomp around and rant about in my experience. If you reliably solve problems, your hourly rate goes through the roof in consulting. I totally didn't value my time properly at the beginning ($25/hr!!) -> now it's incredibly higher - I've no idea what I was thinking at the beginning.
- eru 7y ago
  I guess there are two parts: being angry, and using offensive words. I suspect avoiding the former helped much more than avoiding the latter?
  - anon102010 6y ago
    If you want to get paid a fair bit of money and are not some name brand genius (Steve jobs etc) I think you have to be someone folks are eager to work with, ask questions etc. I'm sure the psychologists would be able to expand on this. For some, that means you don't laugh at them. For some who don't curse it may mean you don't say "F*ck" all the time. For some it's skipping lots of strong political talk when trying to do work. For some its being smart and being able to have an interesting conversation. For some it's having a clear technical opinion backed by experience (ie, you can provide good clear direction). For some its always trying to understand their problem before solving it. A lot of the folks who say their behavior should be fine (ie, cursing, getting into politics) the point is that it's not per se wrong, it's just doesn't in my view lead to someone a large group of folks are eager to work with. Telling other people to be OK with your behavior (even if you are "right") is not always comfortable - and these folks can be very very confrontational and don't handle other views well often.
Rerarom 7y ago
> Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. For some reason, I believed this when I was a kid without anyone ever telling me. That is why I never cursed as a kid and never discussed cursing with my parents.
swyx 7y ago
a+ parenting, i will adopt this if i ever have kids.
vidarh 7y ago
> Words are words and censoring “bad” words is silly. You can’t censor meaning. “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. Especially if it censors words like “associating” or “Cummings” or “arsenal”. This is just fodder for the unnecessary censorship memes. One of my childhood friends kept calling his brother names. He was told off and told he couldn't do that any more... He promptly changed to call his brother by the name of cheeses. His brother certainly instantly recognized that "gouda" etc. was just as clearly an insult as any of the other things he had been called, and got just as angry.
- throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
  It's intent. I went to a boarding school, kids lived in 'houses' with housemasters. They were pretty good, not as dickensian as it sounds. Depending on the housemaster, and provided you didn't make a habit of it you could call them wankers or more, occasionally get away with calling them a cunt. All relaxed. But if you intended to offend then far lighter swear words would be taken much more seriously. You could get into trouble just for using the word 'bloody' if it was not meant in jest. Odd, but it worked in my view.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Yup, intent is more important than the actual words. An acquaintance has taken to using a feature or piece of wardrobe as an insult, e.g. "Baseball cap" or whatever. There's also a story that I can't remember fully (my girlfriend knows it) where "prairie hat" became an insult.
  - mtrower 7y ago
    Ya bloody prairie hat! ...I'm saving this one ;)
throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
> would you ever actually do that? I take it as no more than just a bit of typeface fun.
faster 7y ago
When my daughter was about 5 we were on public transit and a bunch of teens were talking near us. Every second or third word was 'fuck' or 'shit'. My daughter asked why they talk that way. I told her it was because they didn't know enough words to say what they meant. 15 years later, she speaks two languages fluently and 2 more at about middle school level. She swears a little, but she knows how to say what she means.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  That's just your victorian judgementalness coming out. It has nothing to do with vocabulary. And it certainly has nothing to do with how many languages your kid knows. Anyone who grew up with conservative parents rolled their eyes at your post. "Ok dad". Btw, she just learned to swear when you're not around. And when you eventually find this out, rest assured it's not that you failed her vocabulary, it's just because she met some friends that swear.
  - faster 7y ago
    Of course she learned to swear from her friends. For better or worse, that's where most people I know learned to fit in with their peers and confuse their parents. That and older siblings who were a little farther along the path toward individuation. What would you tell a five year old about the reason for nearly content-free conversation?
  - kitd 7y ago
    Bollocks.
- deleted 7y ago
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blzaugg 7y ago
I've always found it oxymoronic that "adult words" or "mature humor" are established when we are in our [pre]teens. These things typically don't have origins after coming-of-age.
Glyptodon 7y ago
Swearing had a noticeable impact on my ability to use more nuanced and descriptive vocabulary and it has been really hard to undo. I've also noticed that not swearing and expressing things without expletives tends to make me more memorable to people, which seems beneficial in some circumstances. That said, I'm all for not taking the loony puritan angle when it comes to language and kids.
kitotik 7y ago
A nice counter may be a font that uses ligatures to replace benign impotent words with their more forceful and blunt equivalents.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  Or that undoes self-censoring like fk or a$$. I mean come on, who thinks that actually "protects" the reader or whyever they do it?
  - mtrower 7y ago
    Kind of curious, isn't it? It gets around filters, but I assume that's not what you're talking about. I imagine some people have psychological aversions to "filthy" words like this; and that seeing such substitute words is less uncomfortable for them. That does, however, beg the question: if the intent is to avoid giving offense, why not avoid the word in the first place?
jl6 7y ago
IMHO swear words are strong words capable of causing impact, and which are strengthened through reserving them for when you really need them. If you swear all the time, you dilute that power. If you keep it in reserve, it retains its power to surprise. And so, somewhat ironically, the people who can swear best are those who swear least. People who swear all the time acquire a kind of linguistic impotence.
teh_klev 7y ago
Jesus-shitting-Christ, calm the fuck down. Cocking hell, it's clearly just a bit of fucking about. No need to pop a bollock. /s
- BenjiWiebe 7y ago
  I realize it's /s, but there are people who talk exactly like that, most of the time. It'd be simpler if they just said "calm down, doesn't matter."
  - Cthulhu_ 7y ago
    While true, it's padding and mannerisms like that which add personality to a phrase. Works better in spoken language I think.
    - teh_klev 7y ago
      > Works better in spoken language I think. And uttered by Malcolm Tucker. As a Scot, I enjoy a few well placed sweary words.
adrianmonk 7y ago
I would further refine them from "adult" words to "coarse" words. Everyone needs to know when to be polite and when to be coarse as various situations require. (It's a social skill.) Furthermore, they need to be capable of being polite when required. As a child, you can't be allowed to be coarse all the time because learning politeness takes practice and work, so it'd be like skipping your homework in this area. At some point, hopefully you've mastered that, and then can be a responsible person (probably an adult) who applies things as appropriate.
- bscphil 7y ago
  This is a really good take, and in my opinion strikes a needed balance between two extreme opinions that seem to be dominating this thread: "Swear words don't matter at all, they're just words like any other word. You should teach them to your children and allow them to swear at home. Everyone should be able and willing to swear at all times and in all situations, even during diplomacy missions." "Swear words are only used by ignorant and stupid people, because they immediately reveal that you have no better vocabulary for the situation. I don't use swear words ever, because I, an intelligent person, am always in control of my emotions and have a total grasp of the vocabulary of my native language." Obviously these positions are exaggerated for comedic effect, but you do see some comments come pretty close! In my opinion, both fail to realize that in the normal course of human life we encounter a wide range of situations that call for formality or casualness. Not being too uptight about one's language can help smooth the latter, and it doesn't mean one isn't able to precisely control one's language in the former.
umvi 7y ago
Censorship (in my opinion) has a time and a place. And it should always be a choice, never forced on you. This is an extremely controversial topic that seems to get a lot of people's emotions running hot, so please try and counter that before responding. In my opinion, censorship of media is a personal preference akin to food aversions. Picking the mushrooms out of a chef's dish isn't censorship, nor an insult to his art. It's personal preference. For example, GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series has a great story with tons of intrigue, but it is marred (in my opinion, don't all jump on me), by an over-reliance on sex jokes, explicit sex scenes, and extremely explicit violence/gore. It turns out, you can tone down that stuff (using Calibre) and it makes the book so much better, (again, in my opinion) without losing anything of value. The story is still perfectly in tact, but now more stuff is left to the imagination (implicit instead of explicit). Instead of being described in great detail how a corpse is rotting in a cage and how the maggots are eating the various sex organs, it's now just a decaying corpse in a cage. Same for movies. I enjoy watching censored (TV edited) movies with my teenagers, like "The Matrix".
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Do your teenagers prefer watching the censored version?
- oefnak 7y ago
  How can you tone that down?
  - umvi 7y ago
    Mainly by deleting explicit extraneous details so that more is left to the imagination. "There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple. But the worst thing was between his legs, where nothing remained but a crusted brown hole crawling with maggots." becomes "There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple." I personally find explicit gore like that revolting, and I also don't like reading explicit descriptions of sex organs and/or act of sex so I deleted them. I remove the explicit descriptions of the sex organs and act of sex, while leaving it clear that the characters are sleeping together.
fortran77 7y ago
I think you missed the humor of the creator of this font. He clearly is doing it as a technical demo.
- gnufx 7y ago
  Yes, I think it's a local site for local people and others who don't need that explaining. That may be more obvious from the home page. (Who is "he" amongst the contributors?)
larl 7y ago
Bullshit is a technical term...
ecpottinger 7y ago
I remember watching a interview where the curse words were bleat out on purpose. At the start the person was clear and easy to understand, but as the interview continued the person got angrier and angrier, and started to swear more. As time continue he was swearing more and more. At the end of the interview the teacher said "Clearly he was angry, what was he angry about?". No-one could answer, swear words carry some emotions but they have NO useful information beyond that. The more person swears, the less they are communicating.
- IgorPartola 7y ago
  Bullshit. :) see, I only said one word and you clearly understand my meaning.
- mtrower 7y ago
  But the actual words were removed. It sounds as if it was presumed from the start that those words were without value, and that colored the whole presentation. The removal of the "valueless" words removed any chance of you inferring meaning through context. Watch that same interview without the censorship, and you might well understand it. Watch another one, without any cursing, with random words censored, and you might have trouble understanding it as well.
grahamburger 7y ago
I've tried to frame it with my kids in a similar way as automobiles and power tools. They're not bad words as much as strong ones, and could hurt people if used improperly.
kelnos 7y ago
Couldn't agree more. They're just words. Sure, words that have been used to target particular groups of people to oppress and demean them shouldn't be used. But your garden variety swear words? Whatever. > “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. This always grates on me. Do people actually think they're not swearing, or the impact is less, simply because they leave out letters or replace some letters with a dash or asterisk? It just strikes me as childishness. FWIW, I think you've done an excellent job of teaching your kids to develop a healthy relationship with swearing. I especially appreciate you going into the nuances of a word like "hell" with them; intent and context does matter. I wish there were more parents like you.
ars 7y ago
> would you ever actually do that? Because if you don't, then swear words lose their power. And well, sometimes you need them.
Angostura 7y ago
> we told them they are adult words Not really "adult words", we told them the truth - they are considered impolite and may cause offence. It's a question of social convention, after all. Also, this font is clearly a bit of fun, not "an effort to censor"
azernik 7y ago
Given the reference to the Scunthorpe Problem in the font's very name, it's definitely not seriously pushing this kind of censorship.
moonbug 7y ago
psst..it's a joke.
wastedhours 7y ago
I think this is based off the rather amusing story of someone writing an overzealous curse word filter that didn't allow people from Scunthorpe to write the name of their town. It's an art project over and above anything else.
dynamite-ready 7y ago
Like the idea of using this font ligature mechanism as a programming tool too. Enlightened me. It's clear the rest of it is just joking around.

deleted 7y ago

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searchableguy 7y ago

While I am not for any kind of censorship, if someone doesn't know swear words, would they be able to use them? Is swearing orthogonal to human nature? I had known few kids who didn't know what swearing was and they never did anything similar to swearing. Is there value in swearing? If not, what's the argument for letting kids learn about it? It's an interesting thought. Would limiting the vocabulary lead to people expressing less. Is there any controlled experiment on similar? Can this affect complex thoughts or they can still be conveyed?

bshimmin 7y ago
You're looking for the wonderful-sounding "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis", which is a great thing to trot out at dinner parties (if those ever become a thing again).
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  I guess I can see the added value of swearing in Klingon — kind of the reverse of bowdlerization.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    You could have wedged a couple of a Klingon swear words in there to give us something to start with. The only Klingon I know is q'pla (sp?).
    - D-Coder 7y ago
      Fikanta filo de hundino! (Not Klingon, tio estas aĉa aro da merderoj.)
akdor1154 7y ago
Tangential, but I recall a pop sci write up of a paper that claimed the experience of pain was lessened if the experiencer was allowed to swear. Fact-checking this claim is left as an exercise for the reader, sorry.
- parenthesis 7y ago
  I think I tend to say 'ow' very loudly, and then start swearing at the inanimate object whose fault it clearly was.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Sounds correct to me. Swearing (with whatever words) takes your mind of your stubbed toe. I don’t think the actual words are relevant to the act of swearing.

xwdv 7y ago

No, you can censor anything, even meaning. If censorship doesn't work, it's because you're not using enough of it.

Mindwipe 7y ago

I think it's more a joke to get people to type rude words than an actual censorship mechanic. Much like funny film clips where people bleep innocuous phrases to make them sound sweary. That's the joke, see?

jawns 7y ago

Around middle school, I decided that I would stop using swear words, because it seemed like getting myself in trouble by letting one slip out at an inappropriate time was more of a bother than just avoiding them and coming up with more inventive ways to express myself. Refraining from curse words has been part of my character ever since, and just about everybody who knows me knows that I don't swear. And you know what? I have never missed those words. I have some of the most foul-mouthed friends you can imagine, and the words don't shock or scandalize me. They're just not a part of my vocabulary. I have never, so far as I know, suffered a single negative consequence because I don't curse. But the benefits have gone far beyond never getting detention at school or grounded by my parents because of the use of salty language. For instance, it's led me to stretch myself creatively when I really need to express exasperation or any other strong emotion. And it's led me to notice that some swear words, far from being innocuous, can be really debasing, and to have empathy for those on the receiving end.

hiccuphippo 7y ago
ESL here. At school one teacher told us using swear words only show your lack of knowledge for better words. I took that to heart and the very few times I've used them, I really had no other option. However I've noticed swear words come more easily to me in English and don't feel as harsh as when I hear them in Spanish. I wonder if it's my lack of vocabulary.
- kandaBear 7y ago
  There's actually been interesting research done about that idea, that people who swear have a smaller vocabulary or are less fluent. It seems that the opposite is actually true¹, people who swear are actually demonstrating a broader fluency. Worth a read! ¹ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S038800011400151X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03880...
  - dylan604 7y ago
    I've never given credence to the "cursing == less articulate" either. It's knowing the impact dropping a curse can have to get people's attention. Plus, sometimes, people are just too dense to get how bothered you are, but drop a colorful phrase, and they tend to get the point. Like the George Carlin bit, take a word like "incredible" and it's a nice word. Stick fuck in the middle of it to make "infuckingcredible" and it's an even better word. Fanfuckingtastic > fantastic and is much more impactful than "most fantastic". Having said all of that, I have never told someone FU. That's my line.

Digit-Al 7y ago

From a cursory examination of the site I deduce this is either a piece of satire or a silly joke (maybe both). So relax, this is not a serious effort to censor :-) (Also I commend your child rearing technique vis-a-vis swearing. Seems a very sensible approach.)

abtinf 7y ago

I went the other way with my kids, greatly expanding the scope of curse words. Words are primarily tools of cognition—that is, they are how we hold concepts and use them to reason about the world. When we use words with other people, we are relying on their reason. Curse words are bad for human life because they don’t mean anything in most contexts they are used. “Fuck” can mean sex, but usually it’s emoting a non-specific range of emotions (as in “fuck you” or “infuckingcredible”). Most of its meaning comes from the sound it makes—you might as well bark and purr. The only time a curse word is acceptable is when understanding the emotional state of the speaker is necessary to understand their words, but the speaker is unable to alter their vocal tone in the required manner. Counter-intuitively, this means that curse words may have a valid use in clarifying the meaning of written text. But this is very rare. Using this standard, all euphemisms for curse words are equivalent in terms of their damage to human thinking—darnit is just as bad as dammit. The only difference is etiquette and manners; one is considered to be much less rude.

progman32 7y ago
Interesting take. Can you explain more about why you hold the opinion that sounds that are meaningless are bad for human life, to the point of being unacceptable? In my experience a good sigh or happy noise are net positives.
- abtinf 7y ago
  Curse words are bad for human life because they seem like tools of cognition, but they aren’t. When used as words, they can only confuse and mislead you. However, sounds that aren’t words can be very useful—they are perceptual evidence that we use in our reasoning. We identify groups of perceptions by differentiating them from other perceptions, integrate them into concepts based on their similarities, and assign words to represent all of concretes of that group. So you have many “noise” experiences from yourself and in human interactions, identify some as happy, and now you have a useful new tool of cognition in the form of “happy noise”. With additional experience, you can refine that into many sub-concepts, like “pleasurable moan”, “contented sigh”, “silly giggle”, and so forth. Curse words are different because they are just noise. If I say “happy noise”, you know broadly what I’m referring to. But if I say the word “fuck”, you have no idea what that word means—you would have to make guesses either based on the surrounding words that have semantic meaning, or based on how I said it using your conceptual knowledge of the kinds of noises. That’s why you see curse words used in every kind of context as undifferentiated noise. With my kids, I tell them that using any word they don’t understand is a curse word. It hurts their own life if they make the noise of advanced words they don’t yet understand, because it introduces ambiguity into their thinking. For more information on the role of precepts and concepts in human cognition, I suggest reading “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”.

anon102010 7y ago

I don't curse. I used to do lots of consulting work. Not cursing never seemed to hold me back. I also found I tended to be less angry then the often times it seemed idiotic folks who were always having big disasters and cursing. In my line of work people were paying to get problems solved, not to hire someone who rants and raves. And some of the best money is in solving problems that others stomp around and rant about in my experience. If you reliably solve problems, your hourly rate goes through the roof in consulting. I totally didn't value my time properly at the beginning ($25/hr!!) -> now it's incredibly higher - I've no idea what I was thinking at the beginning.

eru 7y ago
I guess there are two parts: being angry, and using offensive words. I suspect avoiding the former helped much more than avoiding the latter?
- anon102010 6y ago
  If you want to get paid a fair bit of money and are not some name brand genius (Steve jobs etc) I think you have to be someone folks are eager to work with, ask questions etc. I'm sure the psychologists would be able to expand on this. For some, that means you don't laugh at them. For some who don't curse it may mean you don't say "F*ck" all the time. For some it's skipping lots of strong political talk when trying to do work. For some its being smart and being able to have an interesting conversation. For some it's having a clear technical opinion backed by experience (ie, you can provide good clear direction). For some its always trying to understand their problem before solving it. A lot of the folks who say their behavior should be fine (ie, cursing, getting into politics) the point is that it's not per se wrong, it's just doesn't in my view lead to someone a large group of folks are eager to work with. Telling other people to be OK with your behavior (even if you are "right") is not always comfortable - and these folks can be very very confrontational and don't handle other views well often.

Rerarom 7y ago

> Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. For some reason, I believed this when I was a kid without anyone ever telling me. That is why I never cursed as a kid and never discussed cursing with my parents.

swyx 7y ago

a+ parenting, i will adopt this if i ever have kids.

vidarh 7y ago

> Words are words and censoring “bad” words is silly. You can’t censor meaning. “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. Especially if it censors words like “associating” or “Cummings” or “arsenal”. This is just fodder for the unnecessary censorship memes. One of my childhood friends kept calling his brother names. He was told off and told he couldn't do that any more... He promptly changed to call his brother by the name of cheeses. His brother certainly instantly recognized that "gouda" etc. was just as clearly an insult as any of the other things he had been called, and got just as angry.

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
It's intent. I went to a boarding school, kids lived in 'houses' with housemasters. They were pretty good, not as dickensian as it sounds. Depending on the housemaster, and provided you didn't make a habit of it you could call them wankers or more, occasionally get away with calling them a cunt. All relaxed. But if you intended to offend then far lighter swear words would be taken much more seriously. You could get into trouble just for using the word 'bloody' if it was not meant in jest. Odd, but it worked in my view.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Yup, intent is more important than the actual words. An acquaintance has taken to using a feature or piece of wardrobe as an insult, e.g. "Baseball cap" or whatever. There's also a story that I can't remember fully (my girlfriend knows it) where "prairie hat" became an insult.
- mtrower 7y ago
  Ya bloody prairie hat! ...I'm saving this one ;)

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago

> would you ever actually do that? I take it as no more than just a bit of typeface fun.

faster 7y ago

When my daughter was about 5 we were on public transit and a bunch of teens were talking near us. Every second or third word was 'fuck' or 'shit'. My daughter asked why they talk that way. I told her it was because they didn't know enough words to say what they meant. 15 years later, she speaks two languages fluently and 2 more at about middle school level. She swears a little, but she knows how to say what she means.

hombre_fatal 7y ago
That's just your victorian judgementalness coming out. It has nothing to do with vocabulary. And it certainly has nothing to do with how many languages your kid knows. Anyone who grew up with conservative parents rolled their eyes at your post. "Ok dad". Btw, she just learned to swear when you're not around. And when you eventually find this out, rest assured it's not that you failed her vocabulary, it's just because she met some friends that swear.
- faster 7y ago
  Of course she learned to swear from her friends. For better or worse, that's where most people I know learned to fit in with their peers and confuse their parents. That and older siblings who were a little farther along the path toward individuation. What would you tell a five year old about the reason for nearly content-free conversation?
- kitd 7y ago
  Bollocks.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

blzaugg 7y ago

I've always found it oxymoronic that "adult words" or "mature humor" are established when we are in our [pre]teens. These things typically don't have origins after coming-of-age.

Glyptodon 7y ago

Swearing had a noticeable impact on my ability to use more nuanced and descriptive vocabulary and it has been really hard to undo. I've also noticed that not swearing and expressing things without expletives tends to make me more memorable to people, which seems beneficial in some circumstances. That said, I'm all for not taking the loony puritan angle when it comes to language and kids.

kitotik 7y ago

A nice counter may be a font that uses ligatures to replace benign impotent words with their more forceful and blunt equivalents.

Cthulhu_ 7y ago
Or that undoes self-censoring like fk or a$$. I mean come on, who thinks that actually "protects" the reader or whyever they do it?
- mtrower 7y ago
  Kind of curious, isn't it? It gets around filters, but I assume that's not what you're talking about. I imagine some people have psychological aversions to "filthy" words like this; and that seeing such substitute words is less uncomfortable for them. That does, however, beg the question: if the intent is to avoid giving offense, why not avoid the word in the first place?

jl6 7y ago

IMHO swear words are strong words capable of causing impact, and which are strengthened through reserving them for when you really need them. If you swear all the time, you dilute that power. If you keep it in reserve, it retains its power to surprise. And so, somewhat ironically, the people who can swear best are those who swear least. People who swear all the time acquire a kind of linguistic impotence.

teh_klev 7y ago

Jesus-shitting-Christ, calm the fuck down. Cocking hell, it's clearly just a bit of fucking about. No need to pop a bollock. /s

BenjiWiebe 7y ago
I realize it's /s, but there are people who talk exactly like that, most of the time. It'd be simpler if they just said "calm down, doesn't matter."
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  While true, it's padding and mannerisms like that which add personality to a phrase. Works better in spoken language I think.
  - teh_klev 7y ago
    > Works better in spoken language I think. And uttered by Malcolm Tucker. As a Scot, I enjoy a few well placed sweary words.

adrianmonk 7y ago

I would further refine them from "adult" words to "coarse" words. Everyone needs to know when to be polite and when to be coarse as various situations require. (It's a social skill.) Furthermore, they need to be capable of being polite when required. As a child, you can't be allowed to be coarse all the time because learning politeness takes practice and work, so it'd be like skipping your homework in this area. At some point, hopefully you've mastered that, and then can be a responsible person (probably an adult) who applies things as appropriate.

bscphil 7y ago
This is a really good take, and in my opinion strikes a needed balance between two extreme opinions that seem to be dominating this thread: "Swear words don't matter at all, they're just words like any other word. You should teach them to your children and allow them to swear at home. Everyone should be able and willing to swear at all times and in all situations, even during diplomacy missions." "Swear words are only used by ignorant and stupid people, because they immediately reveal that you have no better vocabulary for the situation. I don't use swear words ever, because I, an intelligent person, am always in control of my emotions and have a total grasp of the vocabulary of my native language." Obviously these positions are exaggerated for comedic effect, but you do see some comments come pretty close! In my opinion, both fail to realize that in the normal course of human life we encounter a wide range of situations that call for formality or casualness. Not being too uptight about one's language can help smooth the latter, and it doesn't mean one isn't able to precisely control one's language in the former.

umvi 7y ago

Censorship (in my opinion) has a time and a place. And it should always be a choice, never forced on you. This is an extremely controversial topic that seems to get a lot of people's emotions running hot, so please try and counter that before responding. In my opinion, censorship of media is a personal preference akin to food aversions. Picking the mushrooms out of a chef's dish isn't censorship, nor an insult to his art. It's personal preference. For example, GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series has a great story with tons of intrigue, but it is marred (in my opinion, don't all jump on me), by an over-reliance on sex jokes, explicit sex scenes, and extremely explicit violence/gore. It turns out, you can tone down that stuff (using Calibre) and it makes the book so much better, (again, in my opinion) without losing anything of value. The story is still perfectly in tact, but now more stuff is left to the imagination (implicit instead of explicit). Instead of being described in great detail how a corpse is rotting in a cage and how the maggots are eating the various sex organs, it's now just a decaying corpse in a cage. Same for movies. I enjoy watching censored (TV edited) movies with my teenagers, like "The Matrix".

saagarjha 7y ago
Do your teenagers prefer watching the censored version?
oefnak 7y ago
How can you tone that down?
- umvi 7y ago
  Mainly by deleting explicit extraneous details so that more is left to the imagination. "There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple. But the worst thing was between his legs, where nothing remained but a crusted brown hole crawling with maggots." becomes "There was another dead man beyond the old one, a big red-bearded man with a rotting grey bandage covering his left ear and part of his temple." I personally find explicit gore like that revolting, and I also don't like reading explicit descriptions of sex organs and/or act of sex so I deleted them. I remove the explicit descriptions of the sex organs and act of sex, while leaving it clear that the characters are sleeping together.

fortran77 7y ago

I think you missed the humor of the creator of this font. He clearly is doing it as a technical demo.

gnufx 7y ago
Yes, I think it's a local site for local people and others who don't need that explaining. That may be more obvious from the home page. (Who is "he" amongst the contributors?)

larl 7y ago

Bullshit is a technical term...

ecpottinger 7y ago

I remember watching a interview where the curse words were bleat out on purpose. At the start the person was clear and easy to understand, but as the interview continued the person got angrier and angrier, and started to swear more. As time continue he was swearing more and more. At the end of the interview the teacher said "Clearly he was angry, what was he angry about?". No-one could answer, swear words carry some emotions but they have NO useful information beyond that. The more person swears, the less they are communicating.

IgorPartola 7y ago
Bullshit. :) see, I only said one word and you clearly understand my meaning.
mtrower 7y ago
But the actual words were removed. It sounds as if it was presumed from the start that those words were without value, and that colored the whole presentation. The removal of the "valueless" words removed any chance of you inferring meaning through context. Watch that same interview without the censorship, and you might well understand it. Watch another one, without any cursing, with random words censored, and you might have trouble understanding it as well.

grahamburger 7y ago

I've tried to frame it with my kids in a similar way as automobiles and power tools. They're not bad words as much as strong ones, and could hurt people if used improperly.

kelnos 7y ago

Couldn't agree more. They're just words. Sure, words that have been used to target particular groups of people to oppress and demean them shouldn't be used. But your garden variety swear words? Whatever. > “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. This always grates on me. Do people actually think they're not swearing, or the impact is less, simply because they leave out letters or replace some letters with a dash or asterisk? It just strikes me as childishness. FWIW, I think you've done an excellent job of teaching your kids to develop a healthy relationship with swearing. I especially appreciate you going into the nuances of a word like "hell" with them; intent and context does matter. I wish there were more parents like you.

ars 7y ago

> would you ever actually do that? Because if you don't, then swear words lose their power. And well, sometimes you need them.

Angostura 7y ago

> we told them they are adult words Not really "adult words", we told them the truth - they are considered impolite and may cause offence. It's a question of social convention, after all. Also, this font is clearly a bit of fun, not "an effort to censor"

azernik 7y ago

Given the reference to the Scunthorpe Problem in the font's very name, it's definitely not seriously pushing this kind of censorship.

moonbug 7y ago

psst..it's a joke.

wastedhours 7y ago

I think this is based off the rather amusing story of someone writing an overzealous curse word filter that didn't allow people from Scunthorpe to write the name of their town. It's an art project over and above anything else.

dynamite-ready 7y ago

Like the idea of using this font ligature mechanism as a programming tool too. Enlightened me. It's clear the rest of it is just joking around.