"The editor's guidelines are as follows: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a cop-out." -
Swearing in The Guardian:
A chart
posted by Artw
on Apr 3, 2009 -
31 comments
Our shameless culture, by David Cox (The Guardian): Iran has shown the British what kind of people we really are: without honour and without shame. The Sun, the now
officially approved disseminator of British military information, notes that navigator Arthur Batchelor was "tormented" by being called "Mr Bean". Understandably,
he had to cry himself to sleep. Perhaps President Ahmadinejad feared that the goody bags might just prove a step too far. But no, they were gratefully received, in a response that aptly captures the infantilisation of a people that once ruled much of the world. Navigator Batchelor has however since
complained that the quality of his own bag's contents was not what he had hoped.
posted by hoder
on Apr 10, 2007 -
94 comments
TED UK (click through to What is Ted : About Ted : Highlights. You'd think a conference with Freemon Dyson speaking could afford a decent web designer)
posted by Tlogmer
on Jul 25, 2005 -
5 comments
Trusting The Redcoats: How many independent-minded Americans actually rely on the BBC (specially the
World Service) for accurate coverage of American politics? Not to mention
The Guardian. Is it a strictly an elitist, liberal/left-wing phenomenon? What does it mean? What does it say about better-informed liberal newspapers and media of the U.S.? If so, why aren't like-minded Europeans just as cosmopolitan and, say, pay the same attention to news sources like The New York Times, NPR and others, rather than stolidly sticking to their own national staples?
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jan 14, 2004 -
71 comments
It’s not a mass-produced American product. It's either "a turnaround in American publishing, or... radically wrongheaded" - but it looks like The Guardian may be launching a version in the USA soon.
Could such a venture lead to the demise of the venerable old Fleet Street institution, owned by an
independent trust? Is it overreaching ambition or a daring entry into niche market?
More interesting to me, are there any similar non-profit media organisations in your part of the world (wherever that may be)?
posted by dash_slot-
on Jul 7, 2003 -
13 comments
Elliott could no longer bear the waste. He had six staff and a budget of £3.5m a year. He had a potential client group of 25,000 users ... but at the end of all his work and all that public money, the total number of detox beds he was able to provide was five. The Guardian reports from the front-line of the drugs war. (
part two) You may have no interest in Drugs or the UK but read this superb piece for a profile of a bureaucracy in farcical, tragic, total collapse.
posted by grahamwell
on May 23, 2003 -
5 comments
Stalin, Hitler, Guilt, Finger-Pointing And Friendship: Timothy Garton-Ash reviews, a trifle superciliously but fairly, a very lively and soul-searching polemic between two consummate, consuming and irresistible writers,
Martin Amis and
Christopher Hitchens - who also happen to be old friends. Funnily enough, I'd suggest reading Hitchens's review in
the Atlantic Monthly first; then the
three [
1] extracts
from [
2] Amis's
book [
3] and,
finally, Hitchens's reply to them. All in all, it's that rare thing: a long, juicy, well-written and passionately argued polemic with plenty of insights into how generations come to terms with the honest indiscretions and oversights of their youth. Oh and there's a lot about communism, nazism, totalitarianism and the Sixties too...
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Sep 5, 2002 -
15 comments
The America-Hating British? In the UK's Spectator : "And this time it’s not just the usual America-haters at the Guardian and the BBC, but the likes of Alice Thomson, Stephen Glover, Alasdair Palmer, Matthew Parris, my most esteemed Telegraph and Speccie colleagues...many people over here had no idea quite how ridiculous you are. You’re shocked by us, we’re laughing at you. In fairness, instead of coasting on non-existent diseases and wild guesses at the weather, the always elegant Matthew Parris at least attempted to expand Guantanamo into a general thesis. ‘We seek to project the message that there are rules to which all nations are subject,’ he wrote in the Times. ‘America has a simpler message: kill Americans, and you’re dead meat.’ This caused endless amusement over here. As the Internet wag Steven den Beste commented, ‘By George, I think he’s got it!....’ PS What is an internet wag anyway?
posted by Voyageman
on Feb 11, 2002 -
19 comments
Virgin Mobile Phone Records Which Map Users Whereabouts Kept Indefinitely. Admittedly, this data is only accurate to within a few hundred metres at the moment, but '
When the new breed of 3G - third generation - phones comes on stream, probably next year, they will enable the users' location to be pinpointed to within a couple of metres'. I know the current climate is increasingly pro-identity cards, pro-police state, but this can't be right, surely? Why do they want to keep this information indefinitely?
posted by boneybaloney
on Oct 30, 2001 -
15 comments
Limp Liberals - Aintchasickovem? A really fine left liberal answer to Berkely and all the faint hearts. And it fits right in with my own thinking. It's time we stood up and got counted for human rights against any "culture" or "religion" that denies them. Polly Tonybee writes an excellent and timely piece. Liberals too, should not "go wobbly" out of a plain cowardly "respect" for reactionary strains of Islam, Christianity or Judaism. What do you think?
posted by terrymiles
on Oct 10, 2001 -
19 comments
Archer sentenced to 4 years... This may not mean much to those from outside the UK but there will be celebrations in much of England tonight as the 'Teflon Tory' finally takes fall. Sometimes justice
is done, even to politicians with immense arrogance, money and no apparent morals. The scale of the web of deceit is fascinating and the
ending quite poetic.
posted by Mr Ed
on Jul 19, 2001 -
19 comments
Pathology Tribunal Collapses. One pathologist, who asked not to be named, said last night: "This is going to call into question the credibility of the board. How can the public, let alone coroners and the police, have confidence in the crucial work it does if it can't run a disciplinary hearing?"
posted by methylsalicylate
on Apr 25, 2001 -
2 comments
News picks from the Guardian. This is a very useful service of course: The Guardian links to top news stories on the web- weblog style...
But is this a weblog or just a related links page...?
Either way it's a news junky's heaven...
posted by talos
on Apr 11, 2001 -
6 comments
