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Comment by executesorder66 | Hacker News Reader

What's the point of censoring only one character from the word "fucking"? Both you and everyone that reads your comment know exactly what you are saying, so it's not like you are shielding anyone from anything. And neither is there anyone who is going to punish you for saying a naughty word on the internet. What are you afraid is going to happen if you write "fucking"?

I genuinely want to know the real answer, because this kind of behaviour confuses me. And every time I ask someone about it they don't answer, or give a non-answer.

If HN blocked comments with certain words, I'd understand.

If you genuinely find fuck an offensive word, and instead chose to use some other word instead, I would understand.

But this makes no sense. Please be so kind as to explain.

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It is a stylistic device that serves as a sort of emphasis. Rhetorically censoring all or part calls attention to it as profanity.

You hear an analogous effect used a lot in spoken speech (definitely in the UK, not sure about USA), for example, "ff-<beat>-in' thing". This stresses it in a way, similar to varying tone or volume, that would be missed in a flat reading.

That's an interesting theory, but I don't believe any of it.

There are many better ways of calling attention, or adding emphasis to profanity without having to resort to making it look less profane.

And in the specific case of the comment I replied to it does not look like they were particularly angry or frustrated enough to apply this technique of yours to just one word, while the rest of the sentence is fairly innocuous. And I further doubt that if any (neutral) literary analysis were to be applied to that comment, that people would think that stormking was so angry that they were actually trying to apply any kind of emphasis the profanity.

Emphasis not just in the narrow sense of showing intense emotion, but rather the general concept of giving a sentence rhythm and prosody, often to highlight a wry or ironic situation. Your analysis is correct that GP likely did not do it entirely to invite readers to get annoyed on their behalf, but rather to humourously focus on the contrast between the arduity of setting up and waiting for a dual-boot on one hand, and playing a "f*cking game" on the other.

> There are many better ways of calling attention

Written expression is a form of art, not a formula with a correct answer.

I do it sometimes to weaken the word.

Their u key is broken

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