• Alcari (unregistered)

    Why not simply use the English markov code, but filter out all dictionary words? Any dirtiness left will be left in the mind of the interpreter, which you are free to point out when questioned. "No sir, it says "fuku", what were you thinking about when you read it?"

    I've seen a much similar system, which used to generate passwords (I think) using a consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel-number-number twice, which produces remarkably few real words.

  • xeno (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    A better plan from 1995 - if only Brian had known.

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1760.txt

    The S/KEY system is designed to facilitate this manual entry without impeding automatic methods. The one-time password is therefore converted to, and accepted as, a sequence of six short (1 to 4 letter) English words. Each word is chosen from a dictionary of 2048 words;

    Dictionary for Converting Between S/KEY 6-Word and Binary Formats

    { "A", "ABE", "ACE", ....."YELL", "YOGA", "YOKE" };

    Interesting idea (I'm saving that link), but I'd change the dictionary from the one suggested. It contains the potential for hilarious fridge-magnet results, with names like "TINA" and "STAN" and words like "BONE", "FAT", "EWE", "HOLE" and "TAP".

  • xeno (unregistered) in reply to xeno
    xeno:
    Peter:
    A better plan from 1995 - if only Brian had known.

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1760.txt

    The S/KEY system is designed to facilitate this manual entry without impeding automatic methods. The one-time password is therefore converted to, and accepted as, a sequence of six short (1 to 4 letter) English words. Each word is chosen from a dictionary of 2048 words;

    Dictionary for Converting Between S/KEY 6-Word and Binary Formats

    { "A", "ABE", "ACE", ....."YELL", "YOGA", "YOKE" };

    Interesting idea (I'm saving that link), but I'd change the dictionary from the one suggested. It contains the potential for hilarious fridge-magnet results, with names like "TINA" and "STAN" and words like "BONE", "FAT", "EWE", "HOLE" and "TAP".
    In fact, that dictionary is absolutely disastrous. Is this a practical joke? I mean, seriously, "RAM", "CUNY" (bit Shakespearian, but still), "HAND", "RIM", "JOB", "YANK", "KISS", "JUNK", "WANG", "BUM", "FORE", "SKIN", "TOY", "TUB", "GIRL", "GIVE", "HEAD", "COCK" (yes really)... I could go on all day.

    Captcha: eros. Or should I say, "EROS".

  • morry (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that the Barry/Brian didn't tell the marketing VP to stuff it, with one week before the launch. Missed the chapter on change control, did he? VP or not - huge huge mistake.

  • ananymous (unregistered)

    I can just imagine some stupid fat women in accounting incredulous at this "ridiculous" new system. They start all gossipy and saying how stupid it is, and then when they hear the "bad words" they act like they were so right all along about how the system is stupid and haughtily act offended

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    TRWTF here is that companies are basically composed of 12 years olds.

  • Jules (unregistered)

    Howsabout the NATO phonetic alphabet? Easy to learn, low chance of error over the phone. E.g.;

    bravo romeo lima november tango or charlie lima bravo tango charlie

    5 letters gives you a key space of over 11 million. Out of key space? Add another letter.

    Hell, you could even make the full words the key, e.g. ID=foxtrot_uniform_bravo_alpha_romeo. No translation required.

  • toby (unregistered)

    Amazingly, GarglePussy.com is not already taken.

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    Sure, the pronunciation is mostly unambiguous (trailing vowel sounds are often unvoiced), but the syllable emphasis screws up a bunch of americans - japanese is very flat, while english likes to emphasize syllable 1 or 2. Makes for confusing listening.

    The rule for unvoiced vowels is constant as far as I know so once you learn what is and isn't pronounced then it will always be the same for every word.

    And really, the only way you can learn the correct syllable emphasis is listening to the language being spoken. Writing system isn't going to make much of a difference there.

  • Shinobu (unregistered) in reply to ih8u

    The first article in quite some time with a good punch line!

    ih8u:
    Fukudome? What?
    Fuck you, do me. Haha. If I would have been the client I'd have considered the occasional funny id some sorely needed divertissement for the lads an' lasses.
    flarp:
    'di' and 'du' are not very japanesey phonemes.
    Depends on your romanisation system. As pointed out above, currently ‘ji’ and ‘zu’ are more popular, but spelling ぢ as ‘di’/‘dzi’ and づ as ‘du’/‘dzu’ makes it possible to distinguish them from じ and ず which would otherwise share the same romanisation. My IME requires ‘di’ and ‘du’ if you want to enter the first two.
    ネット日本語の先生:
    No, you're doing it all wrong. This is the Internet, you're supposed to say things like "わかんないw".
    That comment made my day. Thanks.
    Jules:
    NPA
    And the sales staff get to feel like real marines.

  • joao (unregistered) in reply to Matthew

    In a phonetic language, there is in fact a "correct" pronunciation even for made up words, even for made up words. I don't know if Japanese is phonetic.

  • Terry Kennedy (unregistered)

    Too bad they didn't know this had been solved way back in 1975, 24 years earlier:

    A Random Word Generator for Pronounceable Passwords Author(s): Morrie Gasser Date: November 1975 Publication: MTR-3006, ESD-TR-75-97, AD-A017676 Publisher: MITRE Corp

    Or see FIPS 181 from 1993.

  • takimoto (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    So you wouldn't mind if it generated racial epithets, then? Life if one day it churned out "wetback" or "n----r"?

    You know, there is a whole country named Nigeria. And oil company Nigaz. Are you insulted already?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    So you wouldn't mind if it generated racial epithets, then? Life if one day it churned out "wetback" or "n----r"?
    That would be so fucking awesome and is probably the only way this story could have gotten any better!
  • Sylver (unregistered)

    I am amazed that no one pointed out the OBVIOUS real WTF.

    So, here you have a fully automated online marketing management system and operators are expected to tell each others unique IDs over the freaking phone??? And the solution is to make the ID pronounceable? Hello???

    Why on earth would they have to do something like that? All they needed would have been to be able to login in the system and access the relevant infos.

  • (cs) in reply to Jules
    Jules:
    Howsabout the NATO phonetic alphabet? Easy to learn, low chance of error over the phone. E.g.;

    bravo romeo lima november tango or charlie lima bravo tango charlie

    5 letters gives you a key space of over 11 million. Out of key space? Add another letter.

    Hell, you could even make the full words the key, e.g. ID=foxtrot_uniform_bravo_alpha_romeo. No translation required.

    charlie - pejorative reference to the opposition in Vietnam kilo - clearly, a drug reference whiskey - equal time for alcohol? yankee - while embraced by the North, still a pejorative reference to them in the South. zulu - oh, yeah, now let's make fun of Africans too

    Also, what about "alfa" followed by either "kilo" or "quebec"? I'm deeply offended already... ;)

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Jules
    Jules:
    Howsabout the NATO phonetic alphabet? Easy to learn, low chance of error over the phone. E.g.;

    bravo romeo lima november tango or charlie lima bravo tango charlie

    5 letters gives you a key space of over 11 million. Out of key space? Add another letter.

    Hell, you could even make the full words the key, e.g. ID=foxtrot_uniform_bravo_alpha_romeo. No translation required.

    Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Uniform?
  • My Name, offensive? (unregistered) in reply to GalacticCowboy
    GalacticCowboy:
    Jules:
    Howsabout the NATO phonetic alphabet? Easy to learn, low chance of error over the phone. E.g.;

    bravo romeo lima november tango or charlie lima bravo tango charlie

    5 letters gives you a key space of over 11 million. Out of key space? Add another letter.

    Hell, you could even make the full words the key, e.g. ID=foxtrot_uniform_bravo_alpha_romeo. No translation required.

    charlie - pejorative reference to the opposition in Vietnam kilo - clearly, a drug reference whiskey - equal time for alcohol? yankee - while embraced by the North, still a pejorative reference to them in the South. zulu - oh, yeah, now let's make fun of Africans too

    Also, what about "alfa" followed by either "kilo" or "quebec"? I'm deeply offended already... ;)

    Not mentioning Romeo and Julia, dancing Tango on a balcony -- naked!!!!!!!!!!!

    Then, one of them fell off. What a tragic and scandalous story.

  • TimG (unregistered) in reply to Moss
    Moss:
    Zapakh:
    Right up there with "Never, ever leave the singer in charge of the mix" has got to be "Never let the marketers make technical decisions".

    But not so as well known as "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", or the slightly lesser known "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line".

    "Ah-haha-HA! Ah-haha-HA! Ah-haha--" <gurk!>

    The problem with suggesting sanitized lists of English words is that totally innocuous words in combination can be just as bad as "naughty" <rolls eyes> words. My work is predominantly with CAD, and just yesterday I was putting together a new symbol library for Piping Valves. Because the names are supposed to sort hierarchally, I ended up with a list of names that at one point included:

    VALVE-BALL-3WAY VALVE-BALL-ACTUATOR VALVE-BALL-MANUAL VALVE-BALL-QUICKRELEASE VALVE-BALL-PRESSURERELEASE

    A sufficiently dirty mind will see "dirty" words and phrases anywhere. Try to do this at the last minute is a recipe for disaster.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to TimG

    I want to stick my long-necked giraffe up your fluffy white bunny.

  • N0G (unregistered) in reply to anon

    Reminds me of the Japanese twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu in Austin Powers 3. Someone's going the right way for a smacked bottom!

  • BSDGuy (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    That isn't the worst part, they (the user) shouldn't be seeing these IDs in the first place. That is the entire point in using this software.

    OMG CAPTCHA = ratis...that is a BAD word in this one dielect of language in MY own house! Get real.

  • (registered) (unregistered)

    The obvious solution is to teach everyone Japanese pronounciation (it's not that hard).

    Of course, then you'd need a list of words that are offensive to the Japanese.

  • アレック (unregistered) in reply to 日本語の学生

    こう言うの英語の言葉と間違ったと思います

    ふくした　Fuck you shit かかして kaka shit ふくみはど fuck me hard ぢえふぁつ die fatso とかづき 此れって知りません ふくすか fuck you sucka

    日本語訳知らないでしまいます

  • アレック (unregistered) in reply to Pidgeot

    Kunrei-siki allows both variants though.

    However - the real WTF here is that he didn't use nihon-siki.

  • Bim Job (unregistered) in reply to xeno
    xeno:
    Anonymous:
    A much better idea would've been to just randomly string together plain English words from a sanitized list. Easier to remember, easier to pronounce, no risk of business-destroying garglepussy. Also, two days to write a Markov chain random text generation program? It shouldn't even take two hours. And while I'm nitpicking, Japanese learning books that use romaji are a blight upon humanity, and even losing his job is not too great a punishment for one who as sinned so.
    OutlawProgrammer:
    Is there any particular reason they didn't just simplify their existing IDs? Switch from hex to decimal, throw in a few dashes, and you should wind up with something fairly easy to pronounce:

    1027-4002-9530-3064

    TEN TWENTY SEVEN! FOUR-THOUSAND TWO! NINETY-FIVE THIRTY! THIRTY SIXTY-FOUR!

    OR, a real salesperson would offer to build this customer a brand spanking new system (for a mere million dollars) where they wouldn't need to speak these IDs aloud anymore.

    I have in fact used a combination of these two methods for random client password generation, in the hopes that they won't end up writing them down on sticky-notes or forgetting them, as they tend to do with "secure" passwords like say "CnK5J$lm0". The point is to make a password that occupies less space in human memory while still being sufficiently random (i.e, you can memorise "1812" or "red" as a single item, so "1592-jam-xray-3012" can be remembered as a string of 4 items in your brain, while "CnK5J$lm0" is 9).

    Of course, this is probably some sort of heresy, and some jerk will make erroneous assumptions about the size and content of the word/number set to call me an idiot in the comments, but that's the internet for you.

    Actually, it's the pernicious influence of IBM (circa 1960).

    There is no valid reason to use cryptic eight-character (EBCDIC, yet) passwords, given today's bandwidth. I spent a day in Mexico not too long ago, in a meeting staffed with highly intelligent people who'd drunk the IBM kool-aid, specifying the exact length of a password. The project got cancelled, but that's another story.

    Fiddling around with upper-case, unprintable characters, and even kanji is ipso facto an instant fail.

    Any sane validation in the age of the Internet would use pass-phrases. There's a whole lot of redundancy, and you can even look the real answer up on Google if you hear it wrong over the phone.

    You want security? Just give everybody concerned a copy of the King James Bible (or preferred equivalent).

    "Exodus 20:17."

    That is all ye know, and all ye should need to know.

    (For further points, get a proper Cherokee keyboard and type it in using that.)

    Pah! Amateurs!

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Procedural
    Procedural:
    really, in your mind "sh*t" which is something you do hopefully at least once a day is in the same realm as "nazi" but "gun" is not ? And you do not require therapy ?

    I meet black people every day, but I don't call them by the n-word. I meet women every day, but I don't call them by the b-word. For that matter, every day I meet people who have lower IQ scores than I do, but I don't tell them how stupid they are compared to me.

    If you can't grasp the idea that some words are offensive and/or insulting, can you at least grasp the concept of "common courtesy"? Some things offend other people that do not offend you or me. Therefore, polite people avoid doing those things in front of others. I have friends who are opposed to alcohol consumption. I am not. Nevertheless, I do not offer them alcohol when they come to my house and then tell them what morons they are for declining. That would be, to use a quaint old concept, "rude".

    Sure, there is a point at which the person who is offended should also exercise politeness by not complaining about the offense. I don't smoke, but I think it's absurd when non-smokers demand that smokers give up the habit even when the non-smoker is nowhere in sight.

    If you're wife or girlfriend doesn't mind being called a b----- or having you use vulgar words to describe her body parts, that's between you and her and none of my business. But surely it is no great imposition on you to refrain from using such words in the presence of women who find them offensive. What do you lose by making this small concession? That is, what do you lose other than your reputation for being a vulgar, foul-mouthed jerk who cares nothing about the feelings of others?

    Frankly, I fail to comprehend people who are proud of their rudeness.

  • Kef Schecter (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    Sure, the pronunciation is mostly unambiguous (trailing vowel sounds are often unvoiced), but the syllable emphasis screws up a bunch of americans - japanese is very flat, while english likes to emphasize syllable 1 or 2. Makes for confusing listening.

    And this has what to do with romaji? I've always been skeptical of the notion that the use of romaji vs. kana affects pronunciation in any way. People who want to butcher the pronunciation will find a way to do it no matter what the word looks like on the page.

    • Kef
  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to takimoto
    takimoto:
    Jay:
    So you wouldn't mind if it generated racial epithets, then? Life if one day it churned out "wetback" or "n----r"?

    You know, there is a whole country named Nigeria. And oil company Nigaz. Are you insulted already?

    Umm, no, because if you are going to be offended by every word that rhymes with an offensive word or sounds remotely like an offensive word, or has at least two letters in common with an offensive word, you are going to be offended by pretty much everything.

    I am completely sympathetic to people who object to being called a n----r and I certainly will not use that word. But when someone complains that he is offended by the word "niggardly", I tell him sorry, I am not going to eliminate all words that begin with the letter "n" from my vocabularly.

    I think it is reasonable for non-smokers to ask smokers to confine themselves to the non-smoking section of the restaurant. I do not think it is reasonable for non-smokers to declare entire cities to be smoke-free zones.

    Surely we can exercise some reasonableness and politeness on both sides.

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to joao
    joao:
    In a phonetic language, there is in fact a "correct" pronunciation even for made up words, even for made up words. I don't know if Japanese is phonetic.

    Which brings up the good point, that I believe others have alluded to but not really spelled out, that a flaw to the scheme proposed in this article, totally aside from the offensive word issue, is that English is not a phonetic language, and so anyone attempting to dictate generated nonsense words over the phone would likely result in endless spelling problems.

    Like, I read you the word "kweeble". You could surely be forgiven for writing down "queebull".

    The S/Key word list has many examples of words that would likely be pronounced the same, like "AN" and "ANN", thus making it unsuitable for words to be conveyed verbally.

    So the NATO phonetic alphabet suggestion is probably a better idea. Or some such list of standard words that are easy to pronounce, easy to distinguish from each other, and not carrying any meanings or connotations that would be offensive or distracting.

  • Biggus Dickus (unregistered) in reply to Peter
    Peter:
    A better plan from 1995 - if only Brian had known.

    Well to be fair, there was no reason for Brian to know. After all, he's not the Messiah...

  • Parsons (unregistered) in reply to N0G
    N0G:
    Reminds me of the Japanese twins Fook Mi and Fook Yu in Austin Powers 3. Someone's going the right way for a smacked bottom!

    Okay, I know it was supposed to be a comedy, but surely neither of those names are actually erm... Japanese ?

    Was that a deliberate poke at those Westerners who think the entire Far East is homogenous ?

    ( BTW - the two actresses who played the twins are not twins. In fact are not even related. Make a note - that information may come in useful one day... )

  • PC (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I meet black people every day, but I don't call them by the n-word. I meet women every day, but I don't call them by the b-word.

    Word "woman" is insulting, pc word is "vagina-american"

  • takimoto (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    I am completely sympathetic to people who object to being called a n----r and I certainly will not use that word.

    I object to being called "human" - I demand you call me Superior Overlord. See the pattern?

    Good thing that all this PC madness exists only in US - all other people do not see any problems in using words negro and negroid.

  • Squeeky (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    But when someone complains that he is offended by the word "niggardly", I tell him sorry, I am not going to eliminate all words that begin with the letter "n" from my vocabularly.

    The problem is, few people know or will bother to look up the non-racist root of that word (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggardly) Most people will simply be offended or assume you're a racist which could have implications beyond your intention.

    If a conservative politician from the Southern US used that word to describe Obama's military budget (for example) they'd be flailed alive. It wouldn't matter what the word actually means or it's root origin--perception, although incorrect, is enough to cause the damage.

  • My Name? (unregistered) in reply to takimoto
    takimoto:
    Good thing that all this PC madness exists only in US - all other people do not see any problems in using words negro and negroid.

    You still use PC-s over there? What a madness indeed!

  • My Name? (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    I want to stick my long-necked giraffe up your fluffy white bunny.

    Keep away your naughty giraffe from my pure, innocent, fluffy white bunny!

  • Zer0 (unregistered) in reply to ih8u

    Ahahahaha.... ih8u. Definitely from Chicago =)

    Go Cubs.

  • Chuck (unregistered) in reply to xeno
    I have in fact used a combination of these two methods for random client password generation, in the hopes that they won't end up writing them down on sticky-notes or forgetting them, as they tend to do with "secure" passwords like say "CnK5J$lm0". The point is to make a password that occupies less space in human memory while still being sufficiently random (i.e, you can memorise "1812" or "red" as a single item, so "1592-jam-xray-3012" can be remembered as a string of 4 items in your brain, while "CnK5J$lm0" is 9).

    Dictionary attack.

  • Laughing Jack (unregistered) in reply to Sylver
    Sylver:
    I am amazed that no one pointed out the OBVIOUS real WTF.

    So, here you have a fully automated online marketing management system and operators are expected to tell each others unique IDs over the freaking phone??? And the solution is to make the ID pronounceable? Hello???

    Why on earth would they have to do something like that? All they needed would have been to be able to login in the system and access the relevant infos.

    It is plainly ridiculous. They should fax the numbers to each other.

  • アレック (unregistered) in reply to Chuck

    Fair enough, what about:

    子毒の千士ってちぃらみそ

    Think I'll make that my new password

  • (cs)

    TRWTF is an accounting department that has trouble communicating account numbers.

  • xeno (unregistered) in reply to Chuck
    Chuck:
    xeno:
    I have in fact used a combination of these two methods for random client password generation, in the hopes that they won't end up writing them down on sticky-notes or forgetting them, as they tend to do with "secure" passwords like say "CnK5J$lm0". The point is to make a password that occupies less space in human memory while still being sufficiently random (i.e, you can memorise "1812" or "red" as a single item, so "1592-jam-xray-3012" can be remembered as a string of 4 items in your brain, while "CnK5J$lm0" is 9).

    Dictionary attack.

    Which is why the pass-phrase isn't simple a single word, but a combination of words and numbers. You should know that the position of word and number groups in the string are random and some of the words are memorable alphanumerics.

    xeno:
    Of course, this is probably some sort of heresy, and some jerk will make erroneous assumptions about the size and content of the word/number set to call me an idiot in the comments, but that's the internet for you.
    Without actually wanting to insult you, I want to draw your attention to the phrase "erroneous assuptions". Consider that a random password which is one a trillion possible combinations is significantly less secure than a parse-phrase which is one of a set of say 100 million, but which is not written on a sticky note and attached to a monitor.
  • Jason (unregistered)

    Sindarin is fail-safe. That's what I use.

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to アレック
    Kunrei-siki allows both variants though.

    However - the real WTF here is that he didn't use nihon-siki.

    Ugh I hate nihon-shiki. For the purpose of English speakers, if you're going to romanise Japanese but do so in a way that isn't pronounced at all how it's read (e.g. "zyosi" is actually pronounced like "josh") you might as well just leave it in hiragana in the first place. It's really only useful for the Japanese in places where they need to romanise the language (e.g. IMEs or non Unicode URLs), learning using it is dumb.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Bim Job
    Bim Job:
    I spent a day in Mexico not too long ago

    Dude, that was a fucking AWESOME day bra!

    CAPTCHA: consequat - figuring up your consequences?

  • Kobayashi Maru (unregistered)

    As an aside on romanisation of Japanese...

    When I dabbled in Japanese, many years ago, one of the first decisions to be made was which romanisation system to use.

    Take as an example the names of 3 Japanese corporations:

    Hepburn romanises them as "Fuji" "Hitachi" "Mitsubishi" ;

    Kunrei-shiki romanises the same words as "Huzi" "Hitati" "Mitubisi".

    PS: 私のホバークラフトはウナギがいっぱいです。 :|

  • Procedural (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Procedural:
    really, in your mind "sh*t" which is something you do hopefully at least once a day is in the same realm as "nazi" but "gun" is not ? And you do not require therapy ?

    I meet black people every day, but I don't call them by the n-word. I meet women every day, but I don't call them by the b-word. For that matter, every day I meet people who have lower IQ scores than I do, but I don't tell them how stupid they are compared to me.

    If you can't grasp the idea that some words are offensive and/or insulting, can you at least grasp the concept of "common courtesy"? Some things offend other people that do not offend you or me. Therefore, polite people avoid doing those things in front of others. I have friends who are opposed to alcohol consumption. I am not. Nevertheless, I do not offer them alcohol when they come to my house and then tell them what morons they are for declining. That would be, to use a quaint old concept, "rude".

    Sure, there is a point at which the person who is offended should also exercise politeness by not complaining about the offense. I don't smoke, but I think it's absurd when non-smokers demand that smokers give up the habit even when the non-smoker is nowhere in sight.

    If you're wife or girlfriend doesn't mind being called a b----- or having you use vulgar words to describe her body parts, that's between you and her and none of my business. But surely it is no great imposition on you to refrain from using such words in the presence of women who find them offensive. What do you lose by making this small concession? That is, what do you lose other than your reputation for being a vulgar, foul-mouthed jerk who cares nothing about the feelings of others?

    Frankly, I fail to comprehend people who are proud of their rudeness.

    You are being ridiculous. The N word has no comparison with a word advocating physical love. One is a direct insult, the other is one to which you choose to be gratuitously offended by. to request that everybody censor themselves to meet with your poorly chosen, arbitrary choices of what you will or will not be offended by (again, do bring the red herring of direct insults here, it is an obviously dishonest ploy), if borne out of consummated arrogance, and thus terribly impolite. Go found Pennsylvania or something.

  • Procedural (unregistered) in reply to Procedural
    Procedural:
    Jay:
    Procedural:
    really, in your mind "sh*t" which is something you do hopefully at least once a day is in the same realm as "nazi" but "gun" is not ? And you do not require therapy ?

    I meet black people every day, but I don't call them by the n-word. I meet women every day, but I don't call them by the b-word. For that matter, every day I meet people who have lower IQ scores than I do, but I don't tell them how stupid they are compared to me.

    If you can't grasp the idea that some words are offensive and/or insulting, can you at least grasp the concept of "common courtesy"? Some things offend other people that do not offend you or me. Therefore, polite people avoid doing those things in front of others. I have friends who are opposed to alcohol consumption. I am not. Nevertheless, I do not offer them alcohol when they come to my house and then tell them what morons they are for declining. That would be, to use a quaint old concept, "rude".

    Sure, there is a point at which the person who is offended should also exercise politeness by not complaining about the offense. I don't smoke, but I think it's absurd when non-smokers demand that smokers give up the habit even when the non-smoker is nowhere in sight.

    If you're wife or girlfriend doesn't mind being called a b----- or having you use vulgar words to describe her body parts, that's between you and her and none of my business. But surely it is no great imposition on you to refrain from using such words in the presence of women who find them offensive. What do you lose by making this small concession? That is, what do you lose other than your reputation for being a vulgar, foul-mouthed jerk who cares nothing about the feelings of others?

    Frankly, I fail to comprehend people who are proud of their rudeness.

    You are being ridiculous. The N word has no comparison with a word advocating physical love. One is a direct insult, the other is one to which you choose to be gratuitously offended by. to request that everybody censor themselves to meet with your poorly chosen, arbitrary choices of what you will or will not be offended by (again, do bring the red herring of direct insults here, it is an obviously dishonest ploy), if borne out of consummated arrogance, and thus terribly impolite. Go found Pennsylvania or something.

    Plus, I am very much convinced by the type of people that I meet who hold this discourse that the real motive is to feel holier-than-thou by imposing completely arbitrary restrictions on others.

    Case in point: the word "suck". As in, it sucks. You can go faint or protest to the FCC (so they put a beep over it so you won't lose your intellectual stability upon hearing one phoneme) but all that it will ever do is showcase your ignorance. Why would something that suck ever be a bad thing if it was a sexual reference ? As it happens, it is not; it is a perfectly acceptable naval term. A boat that is inefficient and has a high drag (!? Oh my !!! Call the Governor ! What a dirty foul mouth !!) coefficient is basically said to suck water, or, in its original Dutch seafaring origins, to "zug". It is therefore not good. It sucks. Of course knowing this removes one more reason to impose your arbitrary choices in a judgmental way against others, but I'm sure you'll find more.

    (quick, get ready, the FCC opens in 3 hours !)

  • undefined (unregistered)

    Because in Russian "suka" is bad word then, if they would be russians, then "mitsukaremo" stopped them from using Japanese.

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