Scunthorpe Sans, A font that censors bad language automatically
vole.wtf
vole.wtf
> The problem was named after an incident in 1996 in which AOL's profanity filter prevented residents of the town of Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, England, from creating accounts with AOL, because the town's name contains the substring "cunt".[1] In the early 2000s, Google's opt-in SafeSearch filters made the same error, preventing people from searching for local businesses or URLs that included Scunthorpe in their names.[2]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
Also, grawlix:
> Grawlixes (#, $, , @): typographical symbols standing in for profanities, appearing in dialogue balloons in place of actual dialogue.[2]*
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexicon_of_Comicana
* https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/grawlix-symbol...
* https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/10/the-grawlix-how-the...
https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/plan-and-book/attractio...
“Fugging (German: [ˈfʊkɪŋ] (listen)), named Fucking until 2021, is an Austrian village in the municipality of Tarsdorf, located in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria. The village is 33 km (21 mi) north of Salzburg and 4 km (2.5 mi) east of the Inn river, which forms part of the German border.
Despite having a population of only 106 in 2020, the village has drawn attention in the English-speaking world for its former name, which was spelled the same as an inflected form of the vulgar English-language word "fuck". Its road signs were a popular visitor attraction and were often stolen by souvenir-hunting vandals until 2005 when they were modified to be theft-resistant. The name change to Fugging, which is pronounced the same in the local dialect, was rejected in 2004 but passed in late 2020.”
Brown Willy, Cornwall.
Cock Alley, Calow.
Shitterton, Dorset.
Fanny Barks, Durham.
Fingringhoe, Essex.
Bitchfield, Lincolnshire.
Moisty Lane, Staffordshire.
Shitlingthorpe, Yorkshire.
The principle of the local primary school told us that the older name was “fingeringahoe” which if anything was worse!
Having grown up on Cock Street, I can confirm that they went to great lengths to make the sign theft-proof.
They often nearly succeeded.
[1] See: George Carlin and Howard Stern, and their running battles with abusive government censorship and cultural repression around language.
We will be the ones the shock-jocks are trying to shock, as they goose-step through their live goetze show, calling for math to be abolished from the high school curriculum and for script-kiddie porn to be legalized.
And their adoring fans will get together to vote in president R. Kelly for 2 terms.
Just as long as that speech isn't pornographic. Or advocating direct harm towards a protected class. Or perceived to be threatening towards an elected official...
The 1st amendment may have been intended as an absolute, but courts have typically interpreted it with a fair amount of leeway.
Additionally, the Supreme Court has protected porn under the 1st Amendment countless times. I doubt that any serious person wants threats of violence to be universally legal.
And what's the alternative anyway? Some kind of Newspeak (with an officially approved typography)?
Any of the other implementations of the same concept found in most of the western world, take your pick. Whatever criticism you have of them, I'll probably be able to point that it also applies to some application of the FA (or of how speech is/was allowed in practice) in the united states.
People are people - they have emotions and whenever they argue politely or swear profusely they must not be persecuted for being upset with something. Even if they're most terribly wrong.
I found this nice summary table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insult_of_officials_and_the_st... (sure, Wikipedia can be wrong, but I think this table should be accurate enough). It's all "no" only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Georgia, Ireland, Romania, Slovakia and the United States. This is a minority, surely not "most of the western world".
Hate speech is protected speech, as well as calls for violence (in limited circumstances); the standard for when speech is not protected is the event of 'imminent lawless action'. So, for instance, if you're in a lynch mob, and you yell to lynch a specific person, that's not protected, but if, e.g., you're marching down the street yelling to kill all the Jews, that is still protected speech (see National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie).
> Or make a sort of a statement by desecrating national symbols - such as burning the flag or flying it upside down.
These are also constitutionally protected speech. Some places still have laws on the books regarding this, and some overzealous police departments might try to enforce them, but they would never hold up in court.
Oh, I didn't knew about this. Nice, it's even stronger than I thought. Thanks!
> These are also constitutionally protected speech.
Yeah, I've used those as examples of that. I know government doesn't fancy it and there are attempts to make this sort of desecration illegal now and then, but they're all ruled down in the end.
You won't get arrested for a joke video about training your dog to do a Nazi salute in the US, but you will in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Who's to say that the current SCOTUS won't choose to interpret it in that way again?
I'm not well versed in other nations' approach as it pertains to free speech. Can you enlighten me in terms of how other countries provide legal protection for speech in a way that you perceive to be "stronger" than the U.S? I can't imagine a functioning code of laws that allows for yelling fire in a crowded theater whose nation isn't straight up incapable or corrupt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
edit: it's strange not to even be able to imagine the circumstances you are currently in.
I don't understand.
According to the article you yourself link to, the phrase, in the US, has been a metaphor for conduct not protected by the first amendment for over a hundred years.
All that seems to have changed is the exact definition of "clear and present danger".
Is there a case you know about where someone literally falsely yelled fire in a crowd and it was deemed protected speech in the US?
I would imagine any play about the Chicago fire would be an example, let alone firing squads.
What about online forums where it's not about moralistic control, but a pragmatic action because if you don't censor some kinds of words and speech, it's like a positive feedback loop where everything gets more intense until Godwin or his equivalents turn up? It does seem to be the case that control feedback is needed to keep discussion forums relevant and on topic, and that involves thinking about what needs censoring and by whom and in which situations. Does that same effect and consideration not apply in wider society?
Absolutely, YES! People should be resilient against words and name-calling -- "Sticks and stones" is a common nursery rhyme for a reason.
Of course you can't censor lies automatically. Toxicity doesn't have a technical solution.
Maybe. Maybe not. If you choose to educate yourself about financial scams, and are always wary when strangers call you, that's sensible given the world we live in. If you see pensioners being scammed out of their life savings and support doing nothing because "I would never let that happen to me, they should take responsibility like I do" that's naieve at best and maybe cruel.
Similarly, a society full of media which insults and swears at people because "people should toughen up" is like refusing to clean dogshit off the streets because people should just wear shoes. Great, now you have people trampling dogshit everywhere, what a success.
Like, yes you should lock the door of your house when you go out. But isn't it interesting that there are places where people don't have to? Wouldn't that be ... nice? Better? Do we really want to encourage a society full of people who are wary, calloused, defensive, always on edge, because doing something about it would be 'weak'?
I don’t think so, so let’s treat the two cases similarly. We can forbid harming people with words without forbidding words altogether, just as we do for cars, knifes, hands, etc.
Context matters. In the right context, said in the right tone, “Yeah, beauty” can be quite an insult.
Have you ever been physically assaulted, punched in the face, had your ribs broken, or been put in a strangle hold?
Compare that to a punch to the face. It really doesn't matter if someone was just joking or angry with you, 150 psi to your jaw is going to do damage.
Depends entirely on the degree and nature of the assault. I was beat up badly at school at least a few times, I'd dare suggest if anything it made me stronger, and certainly can't think of anything likely longterm damage it's caused. But I certainly don't presume it's the same for all kids.
> "I was beat up badly at school at least a few times, I'd dare suggest if anything it made me stronger"
Overcoming challenges builds character, but wouldn't it be nicer if you chose the challenges? If you had built strength by choosing to do Karate and learn Mandarin instead of being badly beaten up being foisted upon you? Women report being catcalled from puberty around age 13; is your response to that "if anything it makes them stronger; women who didn't get catcalled are just privileged and weak"?
That's like saying physical damage from a rape will heal in weeks but verbal sexual harrassment can still be hurting decades later.
> but verbal sexual harrassment can still be hurting decades later.
In the vein of putting words in peoples mouths, you think this is a positive good thing and a reason you support verbal sexual harassment because it will toughen people up for decades? (I suspect not).
Do you mean "offensive" as in people's feelings, or as in the antonym of "defensive"?
I think it’s the same. ie: it’s not the word that’s the problem, it’s how you use it.
To expand further: I think the obsession over words is the left’s version of thoughts and prayers. We would rather debate what something should or shouldn’t be called than fix the problem. Because it’s easier and feels like progress.
Although it does lead to the particularly beautiful art of the British swear word. How they can turn any random noun into an insult is pure poetry. I wish American media did more of that.
The religious right, on the other hand, cares a whole ducking lot.
Makes arguments easier if you lump both groups together though.
"Parler CEO Says He'll Ban Users for Posting Bad Words, Dicks, Boobs, or Poop" - https://gizmodo.com/parler-ceo-says-hell-ban-users-for-posti...
Which is easy to do when the only two parties with any influence are massive conglomerates of many different groups and factions.
I do agree that the libertarian right does not care about this (say, Ron Paul).
You should meet some real people sometime and see how the other half lives.
—edit—
Though…if you don’t look like you walked straight off the set of Duck Dynasty they are probably closet conservatives and won’t risk offending some random stranger with their “hate speech” because that’s what ‘merica has become.
Sure, but not every republican is conservative. Most that I've seen or heard are either religious and conservative, or they are libertarian.
There's a difference between "you'll never hear me say that word, just all other words" and trying to censor.
I won't say the n word, but I'll watch a Tarantino movie.
No judgment, just an honest question. Do you also self censor « murderer » or « rapist »?
https://citizenlab.ca/2017/08/chinesegames/
The idea that print shouldn’t be censored is more of a progressive western idea, than a non-US idea.
Like never letting your child ever ride a bike without training wheels.
It's a form of agoraphobia.
Kevin Hart talks about the fact that no one can insult or harm him with words because of the initiative gauntlet he went through to become a comedian.
Did your parents skip your childhood vaccinations on the grounds that a bout of polio or tetanus builds physical strength? Or did they prefer a more gentle introduction to let your immune system become accustomed in a protected, simplified, environment?
It's like putting the most incompetent engineers in charge of architectural decisions in a system design and giving for granted that a service that is scaling fast and adding features to it will deliver 99.9999% uptime.
No.
Society puts/accepts restrictions on citizens behaviour for the wider good of society. Exactly which restrictions, on whom, and when, are always a matter of negotiation and shifting priorities. The classic example being someone shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater when there is no fire. Banning someone from your theater for doing that for a laugh is not narcissistic or arrogant, and only authoritarian in a pretty reasonable sense.
Do you think these countries are "deeply narcissistic arrogant and authoritarian"? I don't think so
Though, to one who believes that swear words have power but shouldn’t be censored: is that just in a legal sense or in a societal sense?
However social groups and independent forums or publishers should be free to set their own editorial standards. Nobody (acting in their private capacity, that is not as a government employee) should have any obligation to repeat, distribute or publish the speech of others that they disagree with.
The western media landscape is incredibly diverse, pretty much every conceivable opinion and niche community is available and discoverable. In fact there seems to have been a huge boom in fringe attitudes and beliefs, as barriers to communication have fallen away, exactly the opposite of what you'd expect if communications was being meaningfully restricted and moderated at the societal level.
Wait, are we still allowed to say "dum"? Is this even visible?
It's doubly hard to predict what will be censored these days given that so often the censored words lists are themselves secret and, well, censored from view. To combat spammers no doubt.
Funny how "secret" and "censored" overlap.
Nope. You've been moved here to the "shadow ban" forum with the rest of the "cool kids".
The absolute best are the ones in every languages that are so versatile. Like "fuck". One of these can replace whole sentences and still be as expressive.
Edit: American English, I should say. The Brits have "bloody".
There’s some neat work on where within the original word you can add them, made all the funnier by hearing people dispassionately dropping strings of f-bombs “to see what works”.
Here’s a classic paper on it: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
It also works with "diddly" which isn't.
It's intersting what information can be found out there in this world, even about something as diddly.
https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/wendell.kimper/...
Lazy profanity, which also has low value, is the form where the majority of the value of the expression is carried by profane words.
The not-lazy form, which has considerably higher value, is the form where profanity augments the primary value contained in the non profane elements of the expression.
In my view, the not-lazy form is to be respected and preserved. Using the lazy form is most generally a disservice to the speaker, though not always. Context remains king!
Why swearing is a sign of intelligence, helps manage pain and more
Although, I must admit, it's a creative (mis)use of ligatures.
"Video Game in a Font": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26495059
A fun piece of art, but I hope nobody actually uses this font.
This one wouldn’t have been censored if it was spelt correctly :)
They then told me that Merriam-Webster is shit, and I should be using the American Heritage dictionary: https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=shitake+&sub...
https://www.lexico.com/definition/shiitake (note the "also shitake")
The name for that mushroom is not from a Roman script. It is translated into one in various ways, official and unofficial, devised by arbitrary missionaries. Once it becomes an English word, it's nice if it is respelled in a way that we can easily pronounce, although it's against our nature as Americans not to just leave it obscure and look down on people who aren't in the know.
British people will happily mangle a word to make it an English word, especially if it's French, but they really should be tried for what they do to the word "jaguar." Americans are more insecure, I guess, due to youth.
In Japanese it would be kanji or occasionally hiragana, some transliterations will be imperfect, and so long as the authors intent is clear, to me that’s all that matters
a*
s**
p**
yup, though when editing it escapes them so they don't get mangled again
Is 'les' a perjoritive for lesbians now??? Or is it the near anagram of 'man penis'??? Or is it because it doesn't contain any of the letters in 'shit'???
otfinfo -g scunthorpe-sans.otf | grep _ | sed s/_//g | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | uniqhttps://jasomill.at/scunthorpe-sans_dlig.fea
Source: Window → Panel → Features in FontLab. Alternatively,
fontforge -lang=ff -c 'Open($1) ; GenerateFeatureFile($2)' scunthorpe-sans.otf scunthorpe-sans.fea
I liked this idea a lot, but unfortunately with roughly 1500 ligartures (one for each font on Google fonts) the meta font became much larger than expected and quite slow when used in the browser. Any experiences how many ligartures are fine performance wise?
I come from a land where ‘arse’ is probably more common, so may be missing something.
It makes me think about the worlds of 1985 and Fahrenheit 451 - what does it look like to make it impossible to express something? When you see a dystopia, what are the mechanics moving underneath its surface, supporting what you can see?
In the dystopias that were realized in practice mostly autocensorship.
Let's say you have 1 in 1000 chance of going to Gulag and 1 in 20 chance of losing your job if you say something bad about Stalin. Will you risk it? Will you promote a guy that openly talks bad about Stalin? He will get into trouble eventually and your career will suffer in turn. And so on. 1% is enforcement 99% is fear.
Not really. Replace Stalin with Putin and the incentives not to talk about the war in Ukraine are very similar.
> In 1984 there is the idea that newspeak is trying to eliminate the ability to express thoughts contradictory to the party line. It's interested to think about what that might look like at every level of implementation.
That's nothing new. "Troubles" in UK/Ireland. "Special Operation" in Ukraine. Blasphemy in most of religious societies that still cared about these things. N-word. Etc.
Language is a weapon, always was. It's not even restricted to totalitarian regimes, totalitarian regimes just use it more and generally for evil means.
My problem with 1984 and how it's perceived today is that it made a whole mythology around totalitarianism that makes it seem there's healthy "normal" state and inhuman totalitarian state, and they share nothing in common. In practice they use the same tools, the differences are in scope and intentions.
It simply fucking doesn't. That's just the person, who has a problem with words, blaming the words for his problem.
The problem is solely within those who don't want to hear it, who believe they can tell others how to speak.
All of these words described some forms of mental disability before becoming swear words and being banned from "respected" language use : Idiot, cretin, retard, moron, dotard, feeble-minded, imbecile, lunatic. Attempts at being as distantiated as possible from describing illnesses have become swear words in themselves. "special" has become an insult depending on context. As did "challenged", "delusional", "deranged", "demented". Replacing old words that became swear words with new words has never worked. The new words that describe the disabilities become swear words as soon as they become commonplace in the language. You may not be able to write "retard" on a filtered chat, but saying that someone is "fit to win at the special olympics" will work just as well and be left unfiltered. Until "special" too gets banned, and then whatever word replaces it will be the new insult in the eternal cycle.
Thanks for the nice, confirming write-up!
Makes as much sense as replacing 'dickhead' with 'penishead'.
At first I interpreted that entire sentence as slang for, "The font doesn't work."
I guess that's another limitation of that approach: multiple parsings of the same sentence.
If you want to decide, then fork it.
And then who gets the privilege of goin' back and keeping all these silly censor lists up to date everywhere when the standard of "acceptable words" changes? And how to handle "regional" curses? All just sounds like more hassle than it's worth to me.
Scunthorpe Sans has ligatures defined for each nasty series of characters, but instead of replacing them with something more readable it replaces them with a black box.
> How this s** works: Modern fonts can combine letters into a single ligature, usually for things like fi or fl but you can pick anything so we’ve done it for swears.
Seems pretty useless to me.
Edit: Joke or Art font. Got it!
It also only blocks one misogynistic slur (the slur that is in Scunthorpe, but not say the slur that looks most like 'slur') that I've tried.
That's quite a skewed definition of "bad" language.
How to say you’re from the US without saying you’re from the US
You're quite right about it failing to block ethnic slurs though.