[Ads-l] s--

[Ben Zimmer]

The "seggs" phenomenon has been dubbed "algospeak," and you can read a
scholarly treatment of the phenomenon in this paper by Kendra Calhoun and
Alexia Fawcett:

https://www.languageatinternet.org/articles/2023/calhoun

Kendra and Alexia are also contributing as co-authors on the next
installment of "Among the New Words," which is all about algospeak. (This
is for AmSp 99.1, soon to be hitting your screens and mailboxes.)

As for the "s--" expurgation, Yahoo News aggregated that story from an
outlet called The Blast (https://theblast.com/). Skimming articles on the
site, I'm seeing typical four-letter avoidance like "s--t" and "f--k,"
e.g.:

https://theblast.com/187637/netflix-the-power-of-the-dog-sam-elliott-blasts-film-benedict-cumberbatch/

But I'm not seeing "s--" for "sex," so that may be some new wrinkle from
the aggregators at Yahoo News motivated by algorithmic considerations.

--Ben

On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 4:12 PM Andy Bach <afbach at gmail.com> wrote:

> Instagram must have a strong banning policy based on text (and images but
> that's different) because it is full of folks using elisions like "seggs"
> or <one letter><emoji> or just emojis in any vaguely sensitive (generally
> s-x related, though) msg, even the captions on images, so their bot or
> whatever, must be able to decode those.  We can wait for Nancy F. to have a
> full overview of these language cow**rds.
>
> On Thu, Mar 21, 2024 at 2:36 PM Charles C Rice <charles.rice at louisiana.edu
> >
> wrote:
>
> > My son brought this to my attention recently and I've been trying to
> track
> > down the service/platform/environment that is causing it, or what/who
> > authors think they are avoiding with these spellings. So far I have seen
> > them on Facebook but only in the short videos that are piped in from
> > Instagram or YouTube. I have seen a few more on YouTube itself. Instgram
> > users--I am not one--insist there is no filter on Insta so it's not
> coming
> > from there (but I rather doubt the assumption). People have sent me
> > examples of s---- for shoot and d-- for die. There's a guy on YouTube
> > posting as DeleteLawz who uses these spellings to amplify his
> > policing-the-police persona. Here's an example:
> > https://youtube.com/shorts/UF1eMbKXPi4?si=XSwfNb8ZDsVfj96c
> > "cop slams man's h**d into car". The subtitles include f*ck, bl**d, p*gs,
> > d*es, and for each of those words the sound track provides only the first
> > and last sounds. He visually covers the violent act described in the
> title.
> > This example might be motivated differently from some of the other
> examples
> > of self-censoring, but it provides good examples of the general practice
> as
> > I've observed it.
> >
> > YahooNews presents a new twist for me because it would likely be a
> > platform-wide policy (or if it isn't, that would be very interesting as
> > well). As far as I know, YahooNews is an aggregator, so it might pull in
> > items that are already self-censored by another publisher.
> >
> > Clai
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of
> > Jonathan Lighter
> > Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2024 7:29 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: s--
> >
> > CAUTION: This email originated from outside of UL Lafayette. Do not click
> > links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the
> > content is safe.
> >
> >
> > url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.yahoo.com
> > %2Fentertainment%2Fadult-film-star-stormy-daniels-033004515.html
> >
> > "Daniels claimed that she accepted the money to create a paper trail for
> > her protection and also claimed that the s-- was consensual....In the
> > documentary, Daniels revealed why she did not reject the billionaire
> > mogul's request for s-- during their meeting decades ago."
> >
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org/
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
>
> a
>
> Andy Bach,
> afbach at gmail.com
> 608 658-1890 cell
> 608 261-5738 wk
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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