# What is "inappropriate" about this phrase? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 10, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215 "2020-03-10T18:06:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/1 "2020-03-10T18:06:13Z")
In Pokemon Go, you can assign nicknames to your Pokemon or other players that you denote as friends. Your friendship level can increase once per day if you interact with a person. While working my way up the friendship levels, I will use the nickname field to make of note of the last date I interacted with someone. Today I marked a friend “s3/10” (s - sent a gift, 3/10 - today’s date). The software blocked it saying the name contained an “inappropriate phrase”. “3/10” was fine. Yesterday’s “s3/9” wasn’t a problem. So what’s the deal with “s3/10”? Googling tells me nothing. Or am I happier not knowing, just like I was happy to be ignorant of the dollar amounts Jeopardy doesn’t allow to be bid. (I understood 69, 420 and 666, but was blissfully unaware of the problems with 14 and 88). ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/2 "2020-03-10T18:26:08Z")
I’m guessing it looks too close to “shit” ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/3 "2020-03-10T18:48:48Z")
Trying do decode [leetspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet) here. s3/10 s is s 3 can be e / can be l, perhaps x??? or an abbreviation 1 is l 0 is O. SE?LO Of course syllable inversion can occur, so LOSE? “Loser” would require “/” for “r” which isn’t likely. Nothing comes to mind in English. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/4 "2020-03-10T19:37:30Z")
It could just be that it looks too much like leet and that’s enough to get it kicked out ---
**Author:** ![Kovitlac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kovitlac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kovitlac)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/5 "2020-03-10T20:02:04Z")
Weird, because the game has no problem with me nicknaming all my Feebas to “Dumas fish”. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/6 "2020-03-10T20:25:03Z")
I’m curious how tomorrow works out. I can’t see any reason for this one. My honest best guess is that their naughty words list has some data that just got entered erroneously. OR that “s3/10” might generate a naughty word in a different region if the text encoding was changed. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/7 "2020-03-10T22:07:41Z")
I played around with it some more and got a few more data points. s3/11 - ok s 3/10 - still bad s 3 10 - ok s 310 - ok s310 - bad Not seeing a pattern. The exact message is “This name contains inappropriate text.” > [@Kovitlac](#): > > Weird, because the game has no problem with me nicknaming all my Feebas to “Dumas fish”. Yeah, it doesn’t seem to pick up phonetic obscenities very well. I’ve seen “SukitBeach” and “Likkme247” (using a Clamperl, of course) in gyms around here. Being an international game, it of course has foreign words on the naughty list. I once tried to name a Lickitung “Baise-moi”, thinking “kiss me” in French, big tongue, Frenching, hee-hee, get it? Totally forgot it can also be translated as “fuck me”. Game blocked that one. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/8 "2020-03-10T22:35:59Z")
If they are using a machine learning algorithm to identify bad names, it may just happen that that string of characters fall in some bad area of the input space for some totally unknowable reason. That is the problem with such algorithms. They are basically black boxes so when they fail it’s hard to determine why. ---
**Author:** ![Saturn\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Saturn\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saturn_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/9 "2020-03-11T00:39:43Z")
Since PoGo is a global game, it could be a safeguard for something in another language/culture. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/10 "2020-03-11T01:12:41Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/11 "2020-03-11T01:19:35Z")
> [@Kovitlac](#): > > Weird, because the game has no problem with me nicknaming all my Feebas to “Dumas fish”. Alexandre Dumas wrote\* The Three Musketeers\*. I wouldn’t have a problem naming a character after a famous author. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/12 "2020-03-11T04:45:49Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Trying do decode [leetspeak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet) here. > [@Saturn\_Dreams](#): > > Since PoGo is a global game, it could be a safeguard for something in another language/culture. Looks like a combination of the two. [dictionary.cambridge.org says “seio” is Portuguese for breast or bosom](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/portuguese-english/seio). Took a few attempts and dropping characters and trying “i” instead of “l” for the “1”. This seems like the most likely explanation. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I’m glad it wasn’t some obnoxious new meme. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/13 "2020-03-11T13:26:30Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Alexandre Dumas wrote\* The Three Musketeers\*. I wouldn’t have a problem naming a character after a famous author. I see nothing wrong with naming a character after famous Chinese essayist Han Dong either. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/14 "2020-03-11T15:26:32Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > Looks like a combination of the two. > [dictionary.cambridge.org says “seio” is Portuguese for breast or bosom](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/portuguese-english/seio). > Took a few attempts and dropping characters and trying “i” instead of “l” for the “1”. > > This seems like the most likely explanation. > > Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! I’m glad it wasn’t some obnoxious new meme. Good detective work. I was also thinking about the logic of the good vs. bad options, and it’s possible that the slash triggers their filter to do a second check removing all special characters, but just a space doesn’t. So “s3/10” and “s310” both get checked as “s310,” but “s 310” and “s 3 10” don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-inappropriate-about-this-phrase/849215/15 "2020-03-11T23:00:41Z")
Soooo… PEN15 wouldn’t fly either. In so many languages.