Sorry for any lack of clarity on my part, Nic2004. We did not limit the words in question to “fuck,” it’s just easier to deal with in explanation. In the thread title count, we included all variations on “fuck” (fucking, motherfucker, thumb-fucker, fuckster, etc.) which was the most common of the harsh words found. There were around five or six “fuck-related” words in titles per page, and then the occasional “cunt” or “shit” or other harsh word, rarely more than one additional such harsh word per page.
Hence, to make it clear what we were dealing with, we tended to focus on “fuck” as the most notable offensive word. We didn’t want to start dealing with administrative details (which words are harsh? is there a list of specifics? is it OK to say “penis” if you’re asking a GQ? Is “crap” OK? … ) We were trying to first deal with the major issue: do we want less profanity in thread titles? and we found that the most common profanity was “fuck” so we focused on that.
We found that there really wasn’t a problem outside the Pit, that the use of “fuck” in titles was rare and the use of other potentially aggravating words was even rarer.
IF we had decided that we do want to discourage profanity in thread titles in the Pit, then we would have proceeded to figure what words are potentitally offensive, etc. But since we never got there, we didn’t need to spend lots of time debating/discussing irrelevancies, if you follow me.
On a sociological level, I suspect that “fuck” has become an all-purpose word, with a variety of meanings and levels. “Shit” (for example) still has the limited meaning of feces, and so doesn’t come up in a thread title often. “I got treated like shit” is pretty much the only use, compared to myriad uses of “fuck.”
And the question of what you would want a child to see, reading over your shoulder, is up to the parents. If you don’t want your child seeing such words on your computer screen, then don’t visit the SDMB when they’re around.