An alternative to Bowdlerizing a word or phrase that is controversial is to acronym [1] it. E.g., now we may begin using PC in addition to PKB to describe some others' posts. Or, in a rare moment of non-puerile thinking, maybe even our own.
Bill Fairchild Franklin, TN [1] Theoretically, any given word can be verbed. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Gilmartin" <paulgboul...@aim.com> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 8:03:27 AM Subject: Re: Pissing contest(s) I had hoped I could resist contributing to this thread; alas, apparently not. On Tue, 24 Sep 2013 07:29:40 -0400, John Gilmore wrote: >David, > >No. I in fact regret the lingering influence of 17th-century >puritanism on English usage. In, say, Italian the cognate verb, >pisciare, has always been usable even in what used to be called polite >society. Preoccupation with avoiding four-letter words in English has >had very unfortunate effects. The forced choice between sounding like >a medical textbook or a guttersnipe in talking about the obvious >topics is disagreeable. > But I have a fairly clear recollection (but can't find in the archives here; perhaps it was ASSEMBLER-LIST) of an instance where you chastised a writer who failed to "bowdlerize" some content. (Perhaps, but not exactly, ASSEMBLER-LIST, 2012-02-12, wherein you elected to supply a "bowdlerized" translation from German.) However, David was playing not on your puritanism, but on your erudition, in my perception. -- gil ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
