Ah Crap

By Shamus Posted Thursday Apr 10, 2008

Filed under: Random 38 comments

The Blog-O-Cuss Meter - Do you cuss a lot in your blog or website?
Created by OnePlusYou

 


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38 thoughts on “Ah Crap

  1. Adam says:

    You know.. my friend had a funny idea, instead of using the F-word just use “Riker”. So that was really Rikered up.

    Gotta love Johnathan Franks.

    edit: huh.. looks like can post fine from home, these messages just don’t like my work.

  2. Phlux says:

    What is the list of cusswords it detects? I always thought this site was pretty PG rated, so unless they’re counting “hell” and “damn” as profanity, I’m not sure I recall seeing anything much stronger than that here.

  3. scragar says:

    It’s gone up :P I just tested it again and it got 9.9%, so I am going to say that it counts lots of minor words…

  4. GAZZA says:

    You Americans and your puritanical ways. ;) “Cuss”? Come on, even saying the word “swear” is considered offensive, or something?

  5. Micah says:

    I’m sure this doodad just does bare word counts, which does not represent profanity at all. A true artiste of profanity can drop a few well-placed nuggets and do way more damage than your average Internet F***wad.

  6. Otters34 says:

    Well, not being American myself, I wouldn’t know, but by what Iv’e seen/read it seems that, yes, Americans are more concerned with what they say, and whether or not it is a slang word for defecation or procreation.

    Although,Iv’e always thought swearing(and using slang in general)is rather sloppy and childish, so I’m biased.

  7. ChattyDm says:

    That’s a funny app.

    My site scored 1.3% Apparently 84% less-cuss than those who tried it before.

    Thanks for the find.

  8. Aelf'en says:

    “Cuss”? Come on, even saying the word “swear” is considered offensive, or something?

    Er, no, it’s just a regional way of saying “curse”. Same word, different pronunciation, colloquial spelling.

  9. Phlux says:

    Aelf’en is right. Cuss is a euphamism for curse. It’s semi-regional from what I’ve seen. You’ll hear it everywhere, but it’s more prominent in some parts of the country than others. Swear is also acceptable pretty much anywhere.

    I won’t say American’s don’t have puritanical habits, but this isn’t an example of one.

    edit: one more thing, shouldn’t 9.9% be considered LOW? I know if I had my own blog it would be about 99%, which I imagine would peg the needle.

  10. Huckleberry says:

    Why is 9.7% already called “medium”?
    More than 9 out of 10 pages on this site are completely cuss-free, according to its findings. That can’t be “medium”! Phlux is right about “PG”.

  11. GAZZA says:

    Ah, fair enough. It’s still weird, but I suppose you have the precedent of not pronouncing “arse” correctly either. :)

    To say nothing of the apparent American issue with female nipples. It can’t be breasts – Angelina Jolie is pretty much naked in Beowulf, but the lack of nipples apparently rates only a PG. Janet Jackson, on the other hand…

    It’s always been fascinating to me how different the otherwise very similar cultures of the Western world can be. (For what it’s worth, in case anyone was interested, I’m an Aussie).

  12. Deoxy says:

    This thing has been making the rounds lately (I saw it via Overlawyered earlier this week – or was it late last week> forget…), and the other stuff at that site is pretty funny, too.

    As to swearing, I think there certainly are times for such language, but I also think that resorting to them is, with a very few exceptions, very weak. If you wish to be insulting or offensive, or you wish to show someone their inferiority, there are far more effective ways, many of which also involve nothing but words, the same as cussing.

    Edit: “It's always been fascinating to me how different the otherwise very similar cultures of the Western world can be.” SO SO true. Violence and sexuality are basically reversed in their relative social acceptibility (at least in terms of movies) from Europe to the US. There are literally porn movies on public broadcast television in some parts of Europe, but they won’t show some thing Americans consider children’s shows due to the violence in them. Rather odd, really.

  13. Hawkehunt says:

    I have to agree with Micah: a work count is almost meaningless as a measure of profanity unless you have weighting for “worse” swear words. Especially since there’s no indication of cuss density. (Per word, per page, per comment)

    And the weighting would have to be tweaked for each country, or even smaller regions. And audience – your typical teenager compared to that little old lady who blushes when she says “Darn it all to heck.”

    Then we have the real problems. How does “F-ing” compare to “effing” compare to “f***ing” compare to uncensored text? Frak to frell? Do you count them at all? If damn counts as profanity, does darn? Dang? Drat? Do we rate a $&&*%$# random string of symbols? How?

    I could keep going, but its after 1am and I have an exam this morning.

    EDIT: Or rather, this afternoon. I really need to check my timetable before I make these sort of declarations.

  14. Phlux says:

    GAZZA: You’ve got us on the nipple thing. That’s straight puritanical nonsense right there.

    I won’t defend the over-reaction but, I’ve seen that Janet Jackson video several times, and there is NO way that was a “wardrobe malfunction”. He reached over and pulled that thing down on purpose. It’s not like a strap fell off or something.

  15. Jeremiah says:

    I’ve always thought even categorizing words as ‘curse’ or ‘swear’ words was rather silly. They’re just words. How is one combination of syllables so different from another that it warrants some special category, let alone all the controversy that usually goes along with a word being a ‘curse’ or ‘swear’ word.

    There are plenty of so-called ‘non-swear’ words that, when used in the right context, are much more offensive.

  16. Sarah says:

    One supposes it does a word-vs-cuss sort of comparison. If you’ll have a look, even 4-chan only rates a 15% on the cuss-o-meter, and that’s clearly a lot.

    I mean…it’s 4-chan.

  17. Luke Maciak says:

    I think the major problem with this tool is that it seems to be only checking the main page of your blog. Surprisingly I scored 0% on my site. In some posts I tend to curse like a sailor, while in the others I am much more PG rated. It all depends on the mood and the topic.

    Still, 0% score seems highly unusual for me. Btw, I can’t remember ever seeing Shamus saying Fuck dropping the F-bomb around here – so it is just odd that I rated lower than him.

  18. Chargone says:

    worth noting that the meter checks to see if there’s Any swearwords it recognizes on a page. if the page has any, that’s a yes, if it has none, that’s a no. it then compares that to the total number of pages. that might explain why some results are different than expected. it’s not counting the number of swearwords compared to other words or anything like that, it’s just number of pages on that site with any recognizable swearwords. [odd that we talk about swearing at someone, actually. technically we’re cursing them. no at involved. one swears an oath, and utters a curse. of course, oaths are often also curses, i suppose]

    that said, my own ‘blog’ [it barely deserves the label] manages to get a 0%. that’s a low, people :P

    … honestly, i thought I’d have at least one in there, but apparently not.

    also worth noting that the percentage rating is for your site, but the low/medium/high thing is compared to Other sites which have been checked.

    adding more pages to your site without cursing will lower your percentage. checking sites with high rates of profanity then going back and checking your own again will lower your Rating.

    Sarah mentioned 4-chan. if it got a 15%, that means, according to the meter page, that 85% of the Pages identifiable as part of that site, contain no cursing at all. that it registers, at least. not that it tells you how bad the 15% that do are. hehe.

    … … how many times did i repeat myself in this post?

    edit: also, i wonder if it counts things like the content of these replies as part of the page or not? that kinda thing could affect your rating quite easily.

  19. Vyolynce says:

    Hehe, my LJ hit 50%. I’m actually a little proud of that…

  20. Mari says:

    My oldest daughter has recently discovered swear words. I mean, she’s probably always known about them but she recently started thinking about them. The big shock, to me, was when she mentioned “the f-word” and after a little probing, it turns out that in her world “the f-word” is quite literally “frigging.” She was unaware that frigging was itself a substitute for a less socially acceptable word.

    That would be when I explained to her that swear words are just words that it’s socially unacceptable to say. They have no special meaning and most of them are just slang for other, more socially acceptable, words anyway. I told her I personally don’t care if she uses them but she needs to be aware that OTHER people care and that the school will be most upset if she uses them there, so it’s easiest to just not use them at all so they don’t slip out in the wrong company.

    All this wisdom coming from a woman who once wrote an entire blog on the “real f-word” and it’s many uses and ambiguities. What an f-ed up world.

    PS I wonder if any of that zinged the meter? Heh.

  21. Davesnot says:

    I commented on a blog that talked about the n-word.. to check the filter after it erased my post with the f-word in it.. I typed in the n-word.. the filter couldn’t have cared less… just shows you how f’d our world is.

  22. Dave says:

    “Why is 9.7% already called ‘medium’?”

    Following the link, I note that they say that the global average (over all sites that have used the meter) is 8%, so Twenty Sided is slightly more cussy than average. This surprises the bleep out of me, too.

  23. Big Wayne says:

    Heh heh, look up geekologie.com on it. I think they missed the f-bombs actually.

  24. Shawn says:

    13.2% on my LJ!

    Suck on that!

  25. Viktor says:

    Broken. I tested it on a forum I visit, one that I know has at least one curse in every topic, and it said 1.5%. Sorry, but unless it’s counting user CPs and pages dating back to the founding of the site, it’s reading something wrong.

  26. Michael says:

    the saddest thing is that google, youtube, and wikipedia are all under 3%(two are nder 2!) very *@#$%$% surprising

  27. GAZZA says:

    Marie: that sounds like a very sensible approach; you must be an excellent parent.

    I swear a “hell” of a lot around certain people … and around others, not at all. Depends on context, your audience, how familiar you are, and (when you’re leaving a comment on someone else’s blog) whether the author of the blog swears in his posts (since Shamus – by and large – does not, I try to be similarly devoid of vulgarity).

  28. Blurr says:

    I think that “medium”, “high” and so forth are a measure of the severity of the curse words and have nothing to do with the percentage.

  29. Anonymous says:

    DOING MY PART

    fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

  30. ArchU says:

    Oh…shit, sorry. That’s prolly my fault too. Bloody, rotten, stupid piss of a day at work… =p

  31. Blackbird71 says:

    Jeremiah said:
    “I've always thought even categorizing words as “˜curse' or 'swear' words was rather silly. They're just words. How is one combination of syllables so different from another that it warrants some special category, let alone all the controversy that usually goes along with a word being a “˜curse' or 'swear' word.

    There are plenty of so-called “˜non-swear' words that, when used in the right context, are much more offensive.”

    You’ll find that a lot of “swear” or “curse” words are words that at one time or another had a perfectly legitimate use and/or meaning and have since been twisted through common use (or misuse) to have more vulgar or crude meanings than originally intended. They became considered as swearing because the user was showing improper knowledge or use of the language. To add to it, since these words would often be used in an outburst of anger or other extreme emotion, they further demonstrated the lack of self-control of the user, which contributed to the use of the words being labelled as crude behavior. So originally it was not the meaning of the words that was so offensive, but rather the context in which they were used. As the language evolved, the swear words became more and more associated with crude behavior, and “polite society” grew to avoid their use altogether out of contrast.

    Personally, I don’t swear, I have no use for it. Am I offended when others swear? Sometimes, it depends I suppose. If someone wants to spew out a blue streak, I don’t care to listen. If someone lets a word slip in a moment of frustration, it doesn’t bother me so much. The only one that really offends me (and sadly is one of the more frequently used) is the taking of the Lord’s name in vain. “Oh, God,” used to be a sincere plea for help to one’s creator, yet now is used as sarcasm, frustration, or derision, and shows a complete lack of respect for the one you are addressing. I find I am most upset when those who I know profess a belief in God frequently take His name in this manner, as I find it hypocritical. I would hope nonbelievers would show the courtesy and sensitivity of not profaning the name of my God, but I tend to be more understanding when they do than I am with those who do believe.

  32. Galaxian says:

    I just came across one sports discussion site where automated swear-word replacement appears to be changing the word ‘dick’ to $%%* or similar. The discussion just turned to Dick Vitale. Now I’m not sure if somebody is innocently saying ‘Dick Vitale’ or saying ‘Fucking Vitale’. If they are just typing ‘Dick’ because that is his name, it is being converted to an expletive-replacement, which is actually mildly offensive by its presence. And what about the cuss count? My name’s Dick as well! I’m a walking expletive!

  33. Jeremiah says:

    Blackbird71:

    You bring up sort of the point I was trying to get at. I don’t think offensive language is about specific words, I think it’s all about context. Or rather it should be.

    I’ve never been offended by any specific words someone says, rather I’ve been offended by what they were saying with those words.

  34. Ben says:

    Gaijinsmash rates a 48%. That’s quite impressive!

    EDIT I found a 100%er. Anyone else?

  35. NBSRDan says:

    A percentile meter is not very helpful if it doesn’t elaborate as to its word list, detection method, and calculation method. 10% Sounds ridiculous for such a relatively tame site. I’m guessing the meter is comparing the amount of posts that contain cuss words to posts that do not contain cuss words rather than the amount of cuss words to non-cuss words. Either that or parsing cusses out of multiple adjacent words, such that, for example, “shit” is found in “the engine doesn’t register its hits”

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