more taboo avoidance

[Jonathan Lighter]

In the last 48 hrs. on CNN  I've heard "bastard," "screw them!" "ripped him
a new one," and "Obama's a black man! Of *course* he's got a  big stick!"

Only "bastard" came from a person in a news story. The others were from
invited studio guests.

JL

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 2:43 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: more taboo avoidance
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Apr 30, 2012, at 1:28 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>
> > I thought HuffPo does not shy from printing full expressions, but that
> > does not mean individual bloggers may not exercise their own brand of
> > censorship.
> >
> > No cover up in Spanish for the first word, however--although I am not
> > sure how "offensive" it may be. Note that the second quote is sanitized
> > in Spanish sources (and other Spanish language sources that I came
> across).
> >
> > http://goo.gl/6q6dT
> >> "Traté de ser profesional y alejarme de mis emociones, pero cuando lo
> >> vi, pensé, ¡menudo cabrón!", asegura Anna.
> >
> I'm finding the image of Dentist Anna's formerly toothed bastard in the
> form of male-goat tripe soup, whether or not that really is the literal
> meaning of "menudo cabrón", is hard to get out of my mind.  What's the
> gustatory equivalent of an earworm?
>
> LH
>
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-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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