A list of human universals. For better or worse, all societies of whatever size share these.
[via The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker]
History of the Predictive Text Swearing Commission
The history of the Predictive Text Swearing Commission.
“Our job, Gilbert, is to offer people not the words that they do use, but the words they should use… Which is why when someone types in 2625 we offer them coal, or ambl, but we do not offer them cock.”
“Or anal!”
This, of course, is exactly how it works in the OED office. Or at least, how it used to:
Julian Barnes told readers of Harpers & Queen that..he had ‘once tried to get blow-job into the OED Supplement and presented my admittedly thin evidence to the editor. He considered my application but declined it. “I’m afraid there isn’t as much of this about as you imagine,” he commented sympathetically, and so in 1972 the term was deemed not to exist.’
Swearing or ‘vulgar’ terms have no problem getting recognition now, however: the recently-revised entry for fuck gives the word the full treatment it deserves.
[Quotation from Treasure-house of the Language by Charlotte Brewer, p. 225.]
The recognition I deserve
I am to middle-class white British males what Nelson Mandela was to apartheid-era black South Africans and Emmeline Pankhurst was to women. At least, that’s what Oxfam would have me think.
This praise is even more over the top given the less-than-noble circumstances that surrounded my donation to the charity: I was undercharged £10 for a tripod yet, being the scumbag that I am, didn’t correct the cashier’s error. Hence a guilty trip to Oxfam’s website twenty minutes later.
Sorry, Oxfam: you shouldn’t put us heroes on a pedestal. We’ll only let you down.
Local idiot to post comment on Internet
“Later this evening, I intend to watch the video in question, click the ‘reply’ link above the box reserved for user comments, and draft a response, being careful to put as little thought into it as possible, while making sure to use all capital letters and incorrect punctuation,” Mylenek said. “Although I do not yet know exactly what my comment will entail, I can say with a great degree of certainty that it will be incredibly stupid.”