Jesse S. et al. v. Antonin S. et al. on fleeting expletives

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 6:48 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 03:26:15AM -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> >
> > The Associated Press ran a poll a few years ago about profanity, and
> > the accompanying article included this line: "For the record, we
> > needed special dispensation from our bosses just to say 'F-word.'"
>
> In general that's the policy of the NYT as well, despite the
> fact that (until recently) the NYT was the location of the
> first known appearance of the expression "the F-word". Every
> time this issue has come up with me, they've either not used
> the phrase or needed to get special permission to do so.

Which leads them into such absurdities as replacing "F-bomb" with
"word-bomb", as noted by Arnold here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002406.html

Stephen Colbert parodied this kind of meta-avoidance in an interview
with Jabari Asim, author of _The N-Word_: "I would never say that word
that begins with the letter after M." Discussed here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004351.html


--Ben Zimmer

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