in reply to Re: Profanity in the CB/Nodes
in thread Profanity in the CB/Nodes

What would be pretty cool would be to have a filter that when ever is saw the word "shit" it would replace it with the word "crap". Crap may not be expectable either but it is better then the alternative.
Who do you think is naieve enough to be fooled by a filter that replaces 'shit' with 'crap'? It neither changes the meaning nor the intent of the author. It would only fool a reader who isn't proficient enough to read a sentence and get a meaning out of the sequence of words - only someone who reads word-by-word without consulting the context might be fooled. But such a person would get upset about 'crap' as well. A more neutral replacement, 'humming bird' for instance, could do the trick.

Abigail

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Re: Re: Profanity in the CB/Nodes
by parkprimus (Sexton) on Jan 29, 2004 at 16:43 UTC
    The whole idea of a filter is not to change the meaning of the sentence or to fool the reader in anyway but to make it more exceptable for all readers. A more neutral word could be used but, it also could be more obvious to the reader that profanity was used.
[reply]
      As I said, only the utterly naieve will find relief in such a filter. Either you change the meaning or intent of the poster - or you don't. If you don't, it's still profanity. "Shit" isn't profanity because it's an 's' followed by an 'h' followed by an 'i' and trailed by a 't'. It's the meaning that's important. Regardless whether you call 'shit', 'crap' or 'fluffy bun', it's the same smelly substance.

      What's in a name? That which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet.
      -- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

      Abigail

[reply]
        Oh but think of the fun this type of filter could provide. Perhaps we could start another node, call it obfu-filter. By substituting one word that could be offenive to another person with another word that could be offensive to a different person, we could totally obscure the intent, readability, and meaning of the original writer.

        Perhaps we could replace all letters with ~, so there would be no confusion as to which word may have been offensive, hence no chance of offense.

        Have fun and thanks for an interesting reply!
        dageek

[reply]

      I think it's obvious to the reader that profanity was used when the reader sees the word 'shit'. Seriously, if this mythical reader has a problem being exposed to such a word, it's their responsibility to disconnect their computer from the Internet.

      -- Mike

      --
      XML::Simpler does not require XML::Parser or a SAX parser. It does require File::Slurp.
      -- grantm, perldoc XML::Simpler

[reply]

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