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Subject:Re: Expletives et. al. From:Brian Boisvert <brianb -at- ICONICS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 9 Nov 1995 14:42:36 EST
This is not meant as a flame towards anyone involved in this discussion.
Personally, I found nothing wrong with the use of "fucking" in the original
post -- it was surprising, but not offensive (again, personally.) However,
we could spend months debating this ("I was offended" "Oh yeah, well I
wasn't", etc.). I'd like to take this in a slightly different direction
-- an aspect of writing that I have never seen addressed:
I have seen many messages that have used "f*ck" or "f--k" or some other
variation. You also see this sort of masking in many publications such as
Newsweek, etc. Does anyone else find this a bit silly? I mean, if you
mean "fuck" (especially in *quoted* material), why not write "fuck." Does
replacing a letter or two with some other symbol somehow make the word less
offensive? Does it make it more "okay" to print? Does anyone know how
this practice got started (and why it continues?)
