DeeKnow’s Grotto

This whole Blogging thing thats been boring the pants off anyone who's not a geek, and a good deal of geeks as well, has finally reached the point where mainstream ISPs and Corporates are now encouraging employees to take up the activity. In fact its even gotten to the point where Micro$oft have setup a blogging service for their customers on MSN.

This in itself isn't overly interesting, but what is, is that Micro$oft have decided to censor certain key words and phrases out of titles and content in newly created blogs. You can probably imagine the words we're talking about. You know the ones, four letters, monosyllabic, fun to use in selected company.

If you've read this far and you want a real laugh you just gotta check out the post on the BoingBoing blog where the author tests the Microsoft system out to find out just which words and combinations of words are usable without suffereing the wrath of God (aka Bill Gates)....

I figured anything in the original list of seven dirty words banned by the FCC would be off-limits: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Most of that proved to be true, as did other potent cusswords which would likely cause license problems for a television or radio station. But a test blog titled "Tits for Tats" passed without incident... More good news. "World of Poop" is just fine. And the rather racy "Butt Sex is Awesome" made it through, as did the overtly naughty "Dick, Balls, Boobies, Goddammit.

Check the original post out. Its a scream. One thing I note though is that they havent tried swear words from other languages. I wonder for example if any of the following would slip through the net....

• E kai nga tutae me e mate
     Maori for 'Eat shit and Die'
• Mierenneuker
     Dutch for 'Ant fucker'
• Twll Din Pop Saes
     Welsh for 'Arseholes to all Englishmen'
• Ani eten lacha zien beh ayen
     Hebrew for 'I'll stick my cock in your eye'
• Ley lo mo hum mah lao
     Cantonese for 'Your mom fucks monkeys'

And in case you're wondering if I'm some amazing linguist specialising in colloquialisms, to be honest I actually sourced the above from the eminantly useful Swearsaurus which doesn't stand a shit show of ever being hosted at MSN but does claim...

 Swearsaurus is the world's largest resource of multilingual swearing. It will teach you a vast array of swearing, profanity, obscenity, blasphemy, cursing, cussing, and insulting in a massive 165 languages - because it's good to experience cultural diversity!

9:45:42 PM