Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!alzabo!kebera
From: kebera@alzabo.uucp (Krishna E. Bera)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: A question from a net.virgin
Message-ID: <1990Jan13.171322.20571@alzabo.uucp>
Date: 13 Jan 90 17:13:22 GMT
References: <820@edstip.EDS.COM> <250@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <604@crabcake> <|WNA1^@rpi.edu>
Organization: Brian's Gang, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 28

tale@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:

>> RTFM = "Read the f**king manual"

>Another interesting aspect of USENET to observe is that some people
>think that substituting * characters for one or two letters in a word
>will somehow make the word less offensive to those it would otherwise
>offend.

Using the * may indicate that at least the writer knows
s/he is swearing and is using the *'d word to emphasize the
point being made. Thus, the *'d word is a superfluous
flavouring particle.

It would work if people did it right -- you're supposed to
hide enough letters so it could be read as any number
of well known cuss words. After all, there are still poeple
who say 'frigging', 'freaking' more naturally than 'fucking'
when they swear.

I would suggest f-ing as a compromise. It might be more
in line with the UNIX regexp tradition to use f*ing, though.

-- 
Krishna E. Bera			"Programmer on the loose"
USENET:	ytopya!kebera@alzabo.UUCP
	cognos!alzabo!kebera@uunet.uu.net
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