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Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

vole.wtf

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Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#161

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #66

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this wa…

> would you ever actually do that?

I take it as no more than just a bit of typeface fun.

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#162

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

vidarh wrote: post #152
IgorPartola wrote: post #66

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this wa…

> Words are words and censoring “bad” words is silly. You can’t censor meaning. “Fk you” is just as powerful a statement as “fuck you”. Especially if it censors words like “associating” or “Cummings” or “arsenal”. This is just fodder for the unnecessary censorship memes. One of my childhood friends kept calling his brother names. He was told off and told he couldn't do that any more... He promptly changed to call his…

It's intent. I went to a boarding school, kids lived in 'houses' with housemasters. They were pretty good, not as dickensian as it sounds.

Depending on the housemaster, and provided you didn't make a habit of it you could call them wankers or more, occasionally get away with calling them a cunt. All relaxed.

But if you intended to offend then far lighter swear words would be taken much more seriously. You could get into trouble just for using the word 'bloody' if it was not meant in jest. Odd, but it worked in my view.

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#164

Post by sbarre »

jrumbut wrote: post #158
sbarre wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this argument before (and I tend to agree with it), but here's a counter-point I heard recently and appreciated: Eloquence and good vocabulary are important, but there is a time and place for something vulgar and basic. Just like there's a time and place for a rapier and there's also a time and place for a folding chair or a pool cue.

I don't think vulgar goes along with basic, the four letter, Germanic versions of fornicate and defecate have a whole range of varied, nuanced, often contradictory meanings that capture the irreducible complexity of lived experience. The Latin derived versions just make everything so bloodless, so focused on one particular aspect of the concept. They really are the simple words, even if they have more letters.

I meant basic in the lowbrow/highbrow sense, not with regards to complexity, but I understand your point.

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#165

Post by faster »

IgorPartola wrote: post #66

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this wa…

When my daughter was about 5 we were on public transit and a bunch of teens were talking near us. Every second or third word was 'fuck' or 'shit'. My daughter asked why they talk that way. I told her it was because they didn't know enough words to say what they meant.

15 years later, she speaks two languages fluently and 2 more at about middle school level. She swears a little, but she knows how to say what she means.

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#167

Post by softwarejosh »

jstanley wrote: post #99
flurdy wrote: post #86

I once worked for an online game aimed at children. With some limited messaging and a forum, we needed to automatically filter swearing especially when it started to reach millions of users. The initial limited English only blacklists were useless. Kids are creative and terrible. So we replaced with big processes of failover with several external swearword filtering services. Costly... But kids are creative..., they…

As soon as you start trying to automatically filter out messages you don't want, you enter an arms race that you're not going to win. Surely a better solution is to provide the players with a way to votekick abusive users, and leave it at that?

have you never played video games?

sure lets votekick someone from club penguin, im sure that wouldnt encourage cyber bullying and make matters worse

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#168

Post by blzaugg »

IgorPartola wrote: post #66

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this wa…

I've always found it oxymoronic that "adult words" or "mature humor" are established when we are in our [pre]teens. These things typically don't have origins after coming-of-age.

Re: Scunthorpe Sans – a self-censoring font

#170

Post by Glyptodon »

IgorPartola wrote: post #66

As a way to show off the capability of ligatures, more power to them. As an effort to censor, why in the ever loving fuck nuggets would you ever actually do that? I have young kids and a large family. We all curse periodically. Instead of telling the kids that these are bad words, we told them they are adult words. As in, when you are old enough you can curse all you want, but as a kid you can’t. We felt that this wa…

Swearing had a noticeable impact on my ability to use more nuanced and descriptive vocabulary and it has been really hard to undo. I've also noticed that not swearing and expressing things without expletives tends to make me more memorable to people, which seems beneficial in some circumstances.

That said, I'm all for not taking the loony puritan angle when it comes to language and kids.

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