"In terms of language, it is also the most offensive official Major League baseball document that we have ever seen." An auction house obtains a one page letter sent to baseball players in 1898, outlining the league's new anti-cursing policy. Includes lots of examples of the kind of language that is not allowed. Nervous auctioneers not sure how to exhibit it. Purely of historical interest, naturally.
posted on Dec 2, 2007 - View this thread

Behold, a new episode of Dave Lovelace's most infamous creation. (warnings: use headphones if at work, and do not attempt to consume food or drink during the cartoon. Thankyew.)
posted on Apr 6, 2007 - View this thread

Are you annoyed with careless, rude, or stupid drivers? Instead of obscene gestures, obscenities, and aggressive tailgating, now you can snitch on them at PlateWire.com, a site where you can enter the license plate, vehicle make & model, and a description of the offensive behavior. Members can search for repeat offenders' license plates and contribute to the blogs.
posted on Dec 20, 2006 - View this thread

So where here the b****y hell are you? has been banned from UK TV screens by the BACC (Thanks a b****y lot) for being offensive even though a study (Language and Sexual Imagery in Broadcasting: A Contextual Investigation) [PDF] released by Ofcom in September 2005 found that b****y was "Not really offensive to any group, seen as everyday sort of language". This from the nation that brought us Little Britain [NSFW]. Some banned advertising still lives on though.
posted on Mar 9, 2006 - View this thread

Offensive cartoons aren't limited to Islam. Others: 1,2,3,4, 5. The cartoonist's name? (wait for it) Christian Keesee. In the current environment, Radford's Whim Internet Magazine is getting "exciting" media attention.
posted on Feb 28, 2006 - View this thread

Edits of NWA's Straight Outta Compton and Fuck the Police... with anything not offensive removed. Just the swears, ma'am. via /dev/null
posted on Apr 15, 2005 - View this thread

What's worse, calling a disabled person brave or a window-licker? It seems it depends on your perspective. Check out the pretty cool blog too. I wonder how this stands up internationally?
posted on Oct 5, 2004 - View this thread

CleanTV (currently in the early stages of construction) is this guy's new web site. It will log instances of "offensive" material shown on broadcast television, enable offended TV viewers to send email directly to local station owners and management, and/or send emails to the station's local and national advertisers. What happens to advertisers who ignore the email campaign and continue to sponsor shows that CleanTV deems offensive? - "If an advertiser continues to support offensive advertising, they will be targeted for local and national boycott. On the local level, newspapers are notified of the boycott and CleanTV volunteers will demonstrate at the advertiser's place of business until the advertiser decides to rescind their support of offensive programming."
posted on Feb 9, 2004 - View this thread

Only men bake cookies in school textbooks. What do dinosaurs, mountains, deserts, brave boys, shy girls, men fixing roofs, women baking cookies, elderly people in wheelchairs, athletic African Americans, God, heathens, witches, owls, birthday cake and religious fanatics all have in common? Trick question? Not really. As we learn from Diane Ravitch's eye-opening book "The Language Police," all of the above share the common fate of having been banned from the textbooks or test questions (or both) being used in today's schools.
posted on May 2, 2003 - View this thread

The BBC reports that a school in West Yorkshire has banned stories like the Three Little Pigs and Babe because "for Muslims talk of pigs is offensive." Strange that the Muslims don't agree.
posted on Mar 5, 2003 - View this thread

Stile has hit the fan. His "Kitten - It's what's for dinner" video has finally attracted the attention of PETA, et al. Oddly enough, they seem non-plussed. Unlike much of MeFi's response, PETA is seeking to censor and prosecute.
posted on Aug 29, 2001 - View this thread

V.funny tvgohome comment on Bush which contains sexual swearwords words and statements which some republicans may find offensive [slight troll for those of the starboard persuasion]
posted on Dec 30, 2000 - View this thread

"Moodwatch" now in Eudora 5.0 "Moodwatch" is, apparantly, something that "watches" for offensive language in your e-mail and then rates your mail accordingly.

According to Eudora, "MoodWatch can detect aggressive, demeaning or rude language in the email you send and receive by looking at both individual words and complete phrases."

I find this to be pretty disturbing. Okay, so right now it can't be used to censor, and right now it can be turned off. But suppose, at some point in the future, it can be used to censor, it's on all the time, and your employer is monitoring the content of everyone's mail to ensure that no one's offending anyone else?

And who decided on the standard for offensiveness to begin with? If you look in their example, use of the phrase "what are you thinking?" was enough to get the highest "offensiveness" rating. What the fuck??!!

Oh, damn. There's those three chillis.
posted on Sep 12, 2000 - View this thread