Taboo avoidance of the day

[Jesse Sheidlower]

I noticed both of the examples that Ben did, but neither of
them bothered me as much as the original one I posted.

With the Google/Apple article, I did wonder what the
"expletive" was, but it didn't really matter in context--I
assumed that whether it was "its fucking slogan 'don't be
evil'" or "Its slogan...is bullshit," it was much of a
muchness.

In the Dover obit, the meaning was clear, so the only issue
was whether or not one should use the word. In my complaints
about these things, I am rarely advocating that "fuck" et al.
should necessarily be printed, and I don't have a fundamental
problem with this particular avoidance strategy.

But in the Runaways review, the problem is the one that I
often complain about: You are being told that there is
something interesting that is too wicked to repeat. If it's
that wicked, don't mention it; if it's not, tell us what it
is, or give a clear enough explanation that we can puzzle it
out. I am generally, if not obsessively, familiar with
_Creem_, and I had not been aware of this "infamous" review
until reading this article. The Times article was thus another
irritating tease with no good purpose. Don't make me read
another publication to find out what you're unwilling to say!

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 01:41:20PM -0400, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
> I spotted two other examples of taboo avoidance in the same issue of
> the Times. On the Apple-Google spat:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/technology/14brawl.html
> "One of these employees said Mr. Jobs returned to the topic of Google
> several times in the session and even disparaged its slogan 'Don’t be
> evil' with an expletive, which drew thunderous applause from his
> underlings."
>
> (What Jobs actually said about the Google slogan: "It's bullshit.")
>
> And in the Kenneth Dover obit, about his memoir "Marginal Comment":
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/books/14dover.html
> "In it, Mr. Dover abandoned traditional British restraint in
> discussing, among much else, his sexual exploits with his wife, Lady
> Audrey Dover. Nor did he stint, as The Times of London said in its
> review of the book, in his use of 'the Anglo-Saxon tetragram' to
> recount the proceedings."
>
> (Lovely second-order avoidance of the F-bomb.)
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 6:56 AM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> > Of the 70s girl band The Runaways, "Creem magazine infamously
> > dismissed them with three unprintable words."
> >
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/movies/14runaways.html?pagewanted=2
> >
> > The review, not trivially easy to find, was "These bitches
> > suck." I don't see three unprintable words, but maybe I'm just
> > math-deprived this early in the morning.
> >
> > But they could at least put a goddamn link in, so the reader
> > doesn't have to wonder what the hell is going on. Grrr.
> >
> > Jesse Sheidlower
> > OED
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org