The art of reading is basically looking at symbols and decoding their meaning in the mind. So, what does the mind see when presented with the word “S - - T” in a sentence. IMO the mind reads it as shit, so why the disguise? Is it to hide it from tender eyes? Now really, at what age does the word “shit” cease to be a mystery? Then again, how about “bullshit”, does that need to be written as “bulls - - t”? Come on how, this veil is not fooling anyone. I wonder how this is referenced in an editorial Style Guide or the AP Stylebook. I am presenting this as an example of several similar situations.
Times are changing, recall the furor caused in the 1939 epic film, “Gone with the Wind” when Rhett Butler’s exit line was, “Frankly Scarlett, I don’t give a damn”; shocking indeed.
I actually read your thread title as “What’s this S through T,” but only because of the capitals and lack of context. Nobody is fooling anybody with the dashes or bleeps: either let us see / hear the words, or don’t write / say them.
Some places on the internet (e.g., the message boards at IMDB) will automatically bleep swear words. So something like s–t is a way to convey the meaning without having it changed to beep.
This was my first thought as well, plus sometimes they won’t even let you post unless you remove the offending word(s); I even know of a few cases where they will detect attempts to replace letters with symbols.
Not directly. Symbols decode into sounds, and the sounds into meaning.
Usually you read by recognising whole words. Replacing shit with s–t might conceivably let someone read text without “hearing” the subvocal sound of a word they dislike.
I guess it is conceivable, but I think you usually wind up having to decode it and subvocalize it so you can understand the sentence. Far more useful is replacing the word with another word that has a similar yet less harsh meaning. Say crap instead of shit and flipping for fucking or even BS for bullshit. Granted, you lose the specificity on whether you meant the harsh or less harsh word, but you can make this clear by context.
I personally swear a lot more in text because it expresses a certain tone of voice that is hard to express otherwise. Sure, you can yell, but the harshness is missing. And an angry emoticon (:mad:) often looks more sarcastic than true. It’s a freaking SMILEY, so it has the twinge of happiness in it.
This has always confused me as well, but the one that gets me the most is when you see “G-d” or some other nonsensical replacement for “God” as a proper noun. Just to reiterate… God, God, God, God, God, Yaweh, Jehova, and other such utterances.
Shit and sh*t convey very different things to me about the writer.
Shit implies to me that the person is crude and uses what I consider offensive and vulgar language on a regular basis. I assume that use of the term is a habit and they have ceased to be aware that the public in general (me) is offended by their behavior. Alternatively they know it’s offensive but they just don’t care.
Sh*t tells me the writer knows the language is offensive and vulgar but is using it for emphasis or out of frustration. They accept the cultural prohibition but are flaunting it **on purpose **and in a limited context. They are “pre-apologizing” if it is offensive to their reader.
The (non-)censorship that perplexes me is when I’m reading a 19th century book that partially blanks out the year the story takes place in. Sometimes they’re not even consistent about it: in one book by Anthony Trollope, I remember that in one place he referred to the year as 18–, in another as 187-, and in a third place as 1871 (for instance). WTF?
Frankly, this seems rather silly to me. Personally, I don’t curse very often, certainly not in writing, as I do tend to agree with the concept that cursing is a crutch for a poor vocabulary. However, I also believe that sometimes “shit” is the only word. That is, there’s a reason those words exist, and like any word, overusing weakens its specific meaning, but if it’s in an appropriate situation, then there’s no reason not to use it just because someone has abused it. For a non-curse related example, a lot of people use the word “literally” to mean any number of different intensifiers, but sometimes it’s exactly the word that’s called for.
This holds true when it comes to cursing as well. If it’s in a formal or polite context, censoring or rewording is probably the best approach. In those sorts of situations, getting whatever nuance a curse might bring is outweighed by the context. However, if you’re watching a film or reading a novel and a character curses, or you’re having an emotionally intense discussion, I think it’s not only just fine, but actually better than not using it. If it’s a work of art, like film or literature, sometimes it’s part of establishing a character’s mood or motivations, sometimes the vulgarity is part of the artistic point altogether.
And when it comes to censoring, as the OP indicates, I just don’t see the point. Sometimes things that would otherwise be censored are left alone for the sake of artistic integrity and sometimes they’re not. But usually, even when censored, to anyone with half a brain, it’s entirely obvious what was removed, so censoring doesn’t seem to serve a purpose. However, I can understand that there is a difference in these situations, and I can appreciate it. We don’t censor Michelangelo’s David, nor do we censor the racial slurs in American History X, because in both cases the potentially offensive content is an integral part of the artistic expression. However, they made a point of changing Halle Berry’s scene in Swordfish for TV or cutting out racial slurs or cursing in any number of movies on, say, Comedy Central, but in none of those cases are the censored parts integral to the art itself.
All in all though, it still seems unnecessary to censor to me, even when the potentially offensive part isn’t necessary. But at the same time, it doesn’t seem like it’s all that big of a bother when it is censored because we can generally easily reconstruct what was censored, if we’re interested. Honestly, what bothers me more is when they try to get clever and change the censored portion to sometime that’s incongruent with the context. In those cases it can be jarring when something out of character is said, I’d rather it just be obvious that it was censored with a brief silence in the character speech and let my mind fill it in rather than put in some ill-fitting word. Same for censoring images, just blur it or black it out, don’t cover it with something that doesn’t fit.
Anyway, the reason I quoted this post is that the two options presented are just too limiting and completely missing the point. Sure I’m not really offended by cursing, even when inappropriate, but I will take offense at racial slurs in a general context. However, in the context of American History X or the South Park episode “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson”, you’d have to be an idiot to be offended by it, and in both cases, they’re completely ruined with censoring. So the idea that not censoring and crude and the person uses it on a regular basis is just as far off as censoring it.
And like I said, when I will write a word that I’m aware can be offensive in many contexts, I’m going to be more careful in considering how I use it, including the possibility of either not using it or using a censored version. However, if I feel it’s appropriate, I will use it even if someone might take offense. Regardless, it’s the context that makes things offensive.