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Comment by stackghost | Hacker News Reader

Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?

I think it is actually a little funny, nowadays of course the assumption that we particularly should be less profane around women would be seen as old fashioned and kind of a bit sexist. But I guess at the time swearing less was probably seen as a way to make women less uncomfortable. And I’m sure in some cases it did help.

An interesting example of the quirks we carry along with us, and the fact that the combination of behavior, intention, and interpretation can mix oddly.

I limit swearing in mixed company and I'm not even that old.

I limit swearing among people I don’t know very well of either gender. Among my friends, I haven’t noticed any difference in who is bothered by it.

I only limit swearing in professional environments; meetings to be honest.

Everywhere else gets the shit and hell and damn that I use in regular language. No slurs and no sexual words like Fuck. But that's just good manners.

Curse words are like salt and pepper for the language. They're not necessary, but often add just the right amount of extra spice.

Oh, that’s an interesting thought, good point. I agree on the idea that slurs and sex-based stuff should be avoided (crassness should be fun for everyone, not exclusionary). I hadn’t put fuck in that bucket really, but of course it does have some sexual definitions.

And it's not that hard to understand, it wasn't as if women would faint at hearing the word fuck, but that casual swearing made an environment feel like a boys club which used to be strongly exclusionary. Go talk to your grandmothers about it, the 60s was the start of second wave feminism— we're not talking about "they said guys to refer to a mixed group" but "how dare a skirt talk back to a man" level sexism.

Back in the 1960s United States, women were often perceived as more sensitive to public profanity, compared to men of the same age.

In the 60's the belief was that they could not tolerate profanity. Or maybe it was that they'd tattle on the rest of us.

There was a concept of treating women with respect.

That's a non-sequitur. There are plenty of other words that start with 'fu-'. It's also a loanword from Chinese.

And even if not, I haven't heard anyone describe the coinage 'fupa' as offensive.

To the downvoters: I said I don't find merit in the suggestion that using 'fu' (or 'foo' as a function name) would be considered to constitute profanity. When learning programming, I simply learned 'foo, 'bar' and 'baz' as silly-sounding example function names. I didn't make any connection from 'foo' in the CS context to 'fubar' in US military slang till over a decade later.

(Neglecting that there weren't many women in CS in the 1960s. I don't even see that the word-fragment would have been considered offensive in civilian context, esp. to non-US speakers of English)

In the 60s, women were generally infantilized, but I suspect the “it was done for the women” explanation for the drift of “fu” to the already-existing term “foo” once separate from the other part of “fubar” is a just-so story, rather than a historical fact.

Is it not clear what “f” and “u” is short for?

Of course it is. What's not clear is what that has to do with women.

I imagine that, due to the societal expectations historically placed on women, they’ve typically had to be “the adult in the room.” Contrast this with men historically being able to get away with acting childishly (or worse). So when terminology used in the workplace is particularly vulgar, it would follow that women would take more issue with it than men.

> societal expectations historically placed on women, they’ve typically had to be “the adult in the room.”

I think it was the opposite; they were infantilzed and sensitive, considered liable to faint or have a bout of hysteria. They were to be protected. Swearing might upset a woman.

Men had final authority over them in many cases. For example, often women couldn't get jobs without their husband's permission.

Women were sometimes the source of a sensitive, compassionate, nurting viewpoint, a balance to the man's roughness. She might appeal to him, but it was his decision.

> due to the societal expectations historically placed on women

This reads like aliens trying (and failing) to figure out why women act more like women than men do.

Can you elaborate on that? My goal was to be as clear as possible and leave minimal room for misinterpretation.

This is a sexist statement

It’s a discussion about a sexist environment. Catch up

Describing the factual sexist environment that existed in a prior time (or, hell, the ones that exist today) is not itself sexist.

It’s a fact the environment was sexist.

Everything else is speculation unless their is some evidence that women’s complaints were the driving factor of a change in policy rather than, say, the infantilization of women or a sexist expectation that women would take exception to it.

Very sexist. Women were not only expected to never cuss, but also to pretend as if they had never even heard such awful words.

https://youtu.be/Cq-If5vVvcc

How so?

People had different values than you do in the past. They also have different values right now.

It's clear. Fucked Up

'F--- you'

In this case the u stands for “up”: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fubar

Because fu.

That part of the comment is not true.

> Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?

Honestly I don't know pussy.

Because they are subject both to sexual harassment and to higher expectations, including "professionalism" (not using profanity at the workplace in this specific case).

This isn't an answer to the question.

Smug responses like this just means you don't actually have a point.

How does it not answer the question "why would women avoid fu over foo"? I thought it was clear that "fu" means "fuck up" or even "fuck you", a sexual swear word, while "foo" means nothing at all.

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