Are you as prudish as the Gray Lady?

Quiz - the swearwords the nyt would not use

Not safe for a prudish workplace.

I just finished reading the first volume of Gore Vidal's memoirs and was impressed at the way he managed to insult people without using any swear words.

The words the NYT won't use just denote a total lack of imagination by people who think they are being shocking. The same little words popping up again and again.

people who think they are being shocking

Except it's been several generations since anyone except a tiny, dwindling minority found them at all "shocking," so the NYT is ever more out of step with the times.

Whether or not you think fiction writers, playwrights, etc. should be using four-letter words, a newspaper's job is to report what people actually say and the actual titles of noted works of art, not to resort to tortured euphemism and circumlocution. I'm with Mother Jones--it's quaint pearl-clutching that verges on the bizarrely anachronistic.

I don't care whether or not NYT reports on what they say and how they do so. I just find it pathetic that they only use four-letter words instead of coming up with something more original.

The words that the Times won't print may have been uttered at an actual moment of shock, when originality was likely the last thing on the utterer's mind.

But even if that is not the case, originality is a good thing, but I don't think that someone saying that something is "a big f'ing deal" (to avoid the TT police) is being less original than someone saying that something is "very good" or "very important" or "simply wonderful" or "the best XYZ in the world" or any other frequently used description. Not every sentence out of everyone's mouth is going to be original.

The Guardian newspaper decided fairly recently (in the last year, I think) to print any such word when it pertained to the story. No asterisks! For instance, here:

A government source told the Times on Wednesday night: "No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a something something and a copper-somethinged something."

lonelyplanet won't let me post the quote here, but you can look it up in that link.

I think the Guardian has printing both those words for thirty years or so. It quite took my American breath away when I came across them there.

Vinny, thirty years ago they would print such words if they were essential to the story, which was probably an editorial decision. Now it looks like their editors are leaving it up to the judgment of the journalists.

I remember the 9/11 videos which were played with an uncensored soundtrack in Europe but which were beeped out on the American channels, implying that even if you are seeing the most shocking and surprising thing in the world, you should just clutch your hanky and say "oh my goodness!"