Readit News logoReadit News
donatj · 3 months ago
Something we have had to deal with in managing educational software with a writing aspect is trying to manage what is offensive to who, in what context and where is not universal at all.

One of the most prime examples, at one point a number of terms related to homosexuality had made it onto the list at the request of a larger district. These are also terms that are being reclaimed, and it was... a difficult problem to try to satisfy everyone, and it did upset other districts. I believe their patterns were all but removed eventually.

We have a fought over the list of definitions and every change provoked controversy. Our current solution is just that we mark items for teacher review but don't tell them why. We don't say they are offensive, we don't say what the problematic words are. We just say it might need review. That's worked pretty well so far.

All this is to say, policing speech is a problem best avoided.

bee_rider · 3 months ago
Unfortunately, whether or not a term is really offensive is a combination of what it is, who said it, and when/where (at least in the common-sense definition). Unfortunately, because this is directly opposed to our (at least in the US, and in most countries rooted in liberalism) sense of fairness which says that rules should be applicable universally, across all people and in all contexts.

Which is to say… policing speech is a problem best avoided!

DrillShopper · 3 months ago
> Unfortunately, because this is directly opposed to our (at least in the US, and in most countries rooted in liberalism) sense of fairness which says that rules should be applicable universally, across all people and in all contexts.

The US is not even internally consistent about this - the legal definition of obscenity in the US is deferential to local community standards.

morkalork · 3 months ago
I worked in completely different field and I had to give up on flagging any variations of "shit". Turns out there's working-class boomers will utter some form or another in every other sentence. Nothing harmful just like "my brother is full of horse shit", "my job is bullshit".
bee_rider · 3 months ago
“Shit” is pretty good because it is crass but not offensive (in the sense that it doesn’t target any particular group). And of course it describes a lot of what’s happening nowadays.
quectophoton · 3 months ago
You just know it's a losing battle because euphemisms will get increasingly creative. So the more you try to stop it, the more people will spread sheet.
kps · 3 months ago
I'm post-boomer, but let me tell you, shit's still fucked.
gherkinnn · 3 months ago
Shitty to limit the use of shit to working-class boomers.
blueflow · 3 months ago
Typical cuss filter UX:

types something in live chat

some random word from the sentence gets censored out

"Why did this just got censored out?"

check urban disctionary

"Why?????"

Bonus points if its regular ethnonyms that are classified as profanities, so people from that place are having big trouble to tell where they are from.

donatj · 3 months ago
I have vivid memories of Digg back in the day censoring out absolutely baffling things in the middle of otherwise regular words.
genewitch · 3 months ago
Go gently caress yourself
sgerenser · 3 months ago
Wow, how embarrbutting
PaulHoule · 3 months ago
Was really amused to see that a paper had English's most prominent profane word in it's abstract on arXiv last month for the first time:

https://arxiv.org/search/?query=fuck&searchtype=all&source=h...

though somebody did slip in a use in a comment earlier.

CSMastermind · 3 months ago
It's certainly an interesting data set, though it has no concept of severity. As far as I can tell, "doodoo" is the same as some racial slurs: we're 100% certain they're bad words.
swah · 3 months ago
If I type the word 'doodoo' I'm pretty sure I'm not swearing... Most probably telling someone about baby sounds.
mdaniel · 3 months ago
oh, it's about baby something but that sentence didn't end the way I thought it would
kps · 3 months ago
Baby shark, shitshitshit.

Baby shark, shitshitshit.

Baby shark!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/10/06/oklaho...

mdaniel · 3 months ago
I legit thought this said "... rating of success" meaning how likely the project was to be successful on some metric based on the profane words therein. I recall there was a study(?) akin to that for the Linux kernel, as a frame of reference
genewitch · 3 months ago
Was it something like FPC where the PC was per commit?
Blackarea · 3 months ago
Could have been in a language agnostic format (eg. csv)
weinzierl · 3 months ago
I think the value add here is being a software package. The lists exist elsewhere and the package authors supplied sources. If you really need a combined list it should be trivial to generate it from the code.
carlos-menezes · 3 months ago
Nit: why is Portuguese named "European Portuguese"? If anything, the language spoken in Brazil should be called "American Portuguese".
HelloMcFly · 3 months ago
I think in this case volume wins out in that over 90% of Portuguese speakers are Brazilian Portuguese speakers. If anything it may one day just become "Portuguese" and "European Portuguese".
dmurray · 3 months ago
At that time, we will have niche dialects "American English" and "British English". "English" will be identified with the variety spoken in India. Please kindly do the needful good sir.
carlos-menezes · 3 months ago
We might as well say European Spanish when referring to the language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula.
SamBam · 3 months ago
Why is the language that using the spelling "colour" often called "British English?"

Deleted Comment

AStonesThrow · 3 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Portuguese

The word "European" was chosen to avoid the clash of "Portuguese Portuguese" ("português português") as opposed to Brazilian Portuguese.

jollyllama · 3 months ago
"Beaver" unlikely to be used in profanity, eh?
Night_Thastus · 3 months ago
Pretty unlikely. I can't remember the last time I heard anyone use it aside from talking about the actual animal it refers to.
SoftTalker · 3 months ago
It is a bit dated as slang in 2025.
bsimpson · 3 months ago
I caught that too. Interesting set of examples. I can think of a profane use of beaver immediately, but not a unvalenced use of "asshat."
brookst · 3 months ago
I think it was an intentional and good example to demonstrate that 0 means unlikely, not impossible.