4 ms·

Amusing, but I would prefer something that would be able to automatically know what I was meaning to do and just do it without having to be vulgar.

• gknoy 12y ago
  Agreed. They could even sanitize it a little bit as 'wtf' or 'oops'.
  • sneak 12y ago
    WTF means the same thing. That is no less vulgar.
    • dragonwriter 12y ago
      > WTF means the same thing. That is no less vulgar. Vulgarity of expressions is not a function only of what the expression means, but of the acceptability of the expression itself in various social contexts. WTF is, generally, acceptable as not excessively vulgar in social contexts where expanding the last letter of the initialism into its referent would not be, but the reverse isn't true; WTF is pretty close, therefore, to strictly less vulgar. This may not seem rational, but then the entire concept of vulgarity is irrational.
      • Crito 12y ago
        > "WTF is, generally, acceptable as not excessively vulgar in social contexts" Which social contexts? Social contexts where people don't know what "WTF" expands to? It's not even a "minced oath".
        • frenchy 12y ago
          "WTF" is less vulgar than "fuck" for roughly the same reason that "the f-word" is less vulgar than "fuck".
          • Crito 12y ago
            I don't buy it. "The f-word" is used exclusively by people being descriptive. Nobody says "So I was f-wording my spouse..." or stubs their toe and exclaims "oh f-word!". It is used when people are reporting what other people said. That is why it is considered less offensive; it is never properly used. It signals to the easily offended, "I want to convey this information to you, but I am deliberately mangling words so that you know I too disapprove of the terrible word that was unfortunately used by somebody else." "WTF" isn't used that way. When people say it, they are using it, not describing somebody's usage. There is zero implication of an apology or empathy with the audience's word-phobia.
        • dllthomas 12y ago
          It's arguably ambiguous as to whether the oath would have been minced, if expanded. I've certainly heard people say "what the frick" or similar.
  • waterhouse 12y ago
    There's already a "wtf" program, available in Macports and probably some other package managers. It has a database of internet acronyms, and otherwise it seems similar to commands like "apropos" and "whatis". ~> wtf is imnsho IMNSHO: in my not so humble opinion ~> wtf is cat SVK::Command::Cat(3pm) - Output the file from depot cat(1) - concatenate and print files fc-cat(1) - read font information cache files git-cat-file(1) - Provide content or type and size information for repository objects ~> wtf is fuck fuck: nothing appropriate http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/games/wtf/ http://cvsweb.netbsd.org/bsdweb.cgi/src/games/wtf/