Lmst

Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time.

#Linux #sourcecode #kernel #swearing #funny #TerribleTuesday

Source: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/

Graph with different swear words and how much they occur in the Linux kernel.

Swearing Is Good for You: a new book spine poem on a linguistic (and sweary) theme
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/06/16/book-spine-poem-52-swearing-is-good-for-you/

#language #VisualPoetry #swearing #blog #books #BookSpinePoem #poetry #wordplay #linguistics

Book spine poem #52: Swearing Is Good for You

A new book spine poem, on a linguistic (and mildly sweary) theme, with some notes on its contents below the photograph.

Swearing Is Good for You

The F-word – spell it out:
Swearing is good for you.
Um . . . holy shit. Says who?

The man who lost his language swearing
*gestures* because internet
(What the F);
The woman who talked to herself
in praise of profanity
(Just my type).

Shady characters,
Role models.

Thank you to the authors: Jesse Sheidlower, David Crystal, Emma Byrne, Michael Erard, Melissa Mohr, Anne Curzan, Sheila Hale, Geoffrey Hughes, Desmond Morris, Gretchen McCulloch, Benjamin Bergen, A. L. Barker, Michael Adams, Simon Garfield, Keith Houston, and John Waters.

I did some work on the mighty 4th edition of The F-Word last year, copy-editing and contributing to its substantial Introduction. Strong Language, a group blog about the culture and linguistics of swearing that I co-founded with James Harbeck, reviewed the book and interviewed Sheidlower.

David Crystal has featured here several times, including in previous language-themed book spine poems ‘Broken Words’ and ‘Language, Language!’. Anne Curzan was the subject of a post about types of linguistic prescriptivism. Geoffrey Hughes’s book inspired a brief post about the surprising etymology of answer.

Desmond Morris’s book featured in a previous book spine poem, ‘Ambient Gestures’. Here on Sentence first I reviewed Gretchen McCulloch’s book, and on Strong Language I reviewed Benjamin Bergen’s and Michael Adams’s books. (Adams now also contributes to Strong Language.)

A. L. Barker’s books have shown up in a couple of previous book spine poems and in a post about an unusual use of without. Keith Houston’s book I reviewed here. The spine’s fading red suggests I should have kept its characters in the shade.

This is book spine poem no. 52. They’re not usually this long, but I guess they’re as long as they need to be. Let me know if you join in the game.

#ALBarker #AnneCurzan #BenjaminBergen #bookSpinePoem #bookSpinePoetry #bookmash #books #DavidCrystal #DesmondMorris #EmmaByrne #foundPoetry #GeoffreyHughes #GretchenMcCulloch #humour #JesseSheidlower #JohnWaters #KeithHouston #language #MelissaMohr #MichaelAdams #MichaelErard #photography #poetry #profanity #SheilaHale #SimonGarfield #swearing #visualPoetry #wordplay

A stack of books against a blue background. They are arranged to form a visual poem, as written in the blog post. Their varied designs and colourful spines and typefaces – in yellows, blues, orange, black, whites and off-whites – lend visual interest.

Ah, yes, a groundbreaking study on how much the Linux kernel swears like a sailor ⛵. Because, clearly, the most pressing issue in open-source software is how often it cusses, not trivial matters like security or stability 🤷. Don't forget to enable JavaScript to truly experience the glory of interactive #swearing charts 📉.
https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,damn*,idiot*,retard*,crap* #LinuxKernel #OpenSource #Humor #InteractiveCharts #TechNews #HackerNews #ngated

Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,damn*,idiot*,retard*,crap*

#HackerNews #LinuxKernel #Swearing #Occurrences #DataAnalysis #OpenSource #Humor #TechTrends

Need more profanity in your Friday? @Fritinancy has compiled a bunch of swearing-related links on the Strong Language blog:
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/06/12/sweary-links-27/

#swearing #profanity #language #StrongLanguage

Cursing robots, Romans, racers, and more. @Fritinancy has a new batch of sweary links on the Strong Language blog:
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/06/12/sweary-links-27/

#swearing #profanity #StrongLanguage #links #language

@ieeespectrum No.

Leave the swearing to the Living, that's OUR fucking thing.

#Robots #Swearing

"You can’t join if you can’t swear." New post at @stronglang on swearing as a childhood rite of passage in wartime London:
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/05/29/swearing-as-a-rite-of-passage/

#swearing #profanity #film #language #JohnBoorman #WWII #StrongLanguage

Swearing as a rite of passage. A new post by @stancarey:

https://stronglang.wordpress.com/2025/05/29/swearing-as-a-rite-of-passage/

#swearing #profanity #film #JohnBoorman #WWII #StrongLanguage

Swearing as a rite of passage

Think about your earliest swearing. Did you graduate from euphemisms? (As a child I used sugar, drat, and flip/feck for shit, damn, and fuck.) Or did you jump right into prodigious profanity? Did you practise in private, and did you try out your new vocabulary among friends – or in front of shocked family members?

Or maybe, as in John Boorman’s Hope and Glory (1987), you were forced to swear. In this period film, which reimagines the director’s childhood in London during the Blitz, coming of age meant coming to terms with the senselessness of war and the elusive sense of swearwords.

As Boorman writes in his wonderful memoir, Adventures of a Suburban Boy, the film was “a way of looking at my personal mythology”. For a child in wartime, some of that mythology centred on ammunition, an object of constant fascination:

We kids rampaged through the ruins, the semis [semi-detached houses] opened up like dolls’ houses, the precious privacy shamefully exposed. We took pride in our collection of shrapnel. Most of it came from our own anti-aircraft shells, which also did more damage to roofs than the Luftwaffe. I often picked up fragments that were still hot and smelt of gunpowder. . . . The most prized acquisition of all was live ammunition. We would lock bullets in a vice and detonate them by hammering nails into their heads.

This is recreated in Hope and Glory in a scene where Billy – Boorman’s surrogate – encounters a gang of boys while out scouring the ruins for treasure. They want to see what he’s made of and conduct some routine intimidation, before realising their common enemy. The mood warms enough for the leader, Roger, to invite Billy into the gang. But first he must pass an unusual test (transcript from 2:10 below):

Roger: Do you wanna join our gang?
Billy: Don’t mind.
R: Do you know any swear words?
B: Yes.
R: Say them.
B: [hesitates]
R: Go on. Say them. You can’t join if you can’t swear.
B: Uh, I only know one.
All: [laughter]
R: Well say that one then.
B: [hesitates]
R: [shoves Billy] Go on.
B: Fuck.
All: [gasp]
R: That word is special. That word is only used for something really important. Now repeat after me: Bugger off.
B: Bugger off.
R: Sod.
B: Sod.
R: Bloody.
B: Bloody.
R: Now put them all together: Bugger off, you bloody sod.
B: Bugger off, you bloody sod.
R: [smiles] Okay, you’re in.
All: [cheering]
R: Let’s smash things up.
All: [loud cheering]

There’s much to enjoy in this scene. The specific innocence of children of that age and time. The camaraderie waiting behind their show of toughness. Their unselfconscious naïveté about swearing; their awe at fuck.* This viewer’s immense relief that none of them is hurt by the reckless play with explosives.

And I love how swearing plays a central role in Billy’s initiation. A string of (very British) swears is the key, the set of magic words that establishes rapport with a group of his peers, dissolving the boundary between outsider and insider and nudging him just slightly towards adulthood.

* For a Boorman film that went in another direction, see my post on avoiding swear words in the making of Deliverance.

#bloody #bugger #Children #comingOfAge #dramaFilms #filmmaking #films #fuck #HopeAndGlory #JohnBoorman #sod #swearing #swearingInFilms #taboo #tabooLanguage #tabooWords #war #warFilms #WorldWarII

Poster for the film Hope and Glory. It shows a schoolboy running towards the camera, grinning broadly. Over his right shoulder there are several airships in the sky, and below them some other children on the street. The boy's jacket swings open, his tie is loose, and he's wearing short pants and shoes, like a school uniform. The tagline above the film title reads: A celebration of family. A vision of love. A memoir of war. All through the eyes of a child.

"Prior to Trump, cursing was scandalous for politicians. So why are Minnesota Democrats suddenly cursing so much?"

Madison McVan of the Minnesota Reformer on the rise in swearing among politicians: https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/05/22/warning-this-story-contains-graphic-language-blame-the-dfl-politicians/

#swearing #politics #USpol #cursing #profanity #language

Language Hat follows up on @Wordorigins's "Serving Kant" post: https://languagehat.com/serving-kant/

#songs #MirianaConte #swearing #profanity #puns #PopCulture #Eurovision

When you leave a Facebook group there's often a popup asking why you left.

There needs to be an option for "the group rules said "no cunts allowed", yet it was in fact filled to the brim with cunts."

#Facebook #FacebookGroups #DopePeopleWhoCrochet #ActuallyBitchyCuntsWhoCrochet #swearing

I just saw the hashtag for Caturday, and was thinking two thoughts at the same time:
- oh, I should post a picture for Caturday
- it's already Sunday here

...the thoughts melded together and came out as "I should post a picture for Cuntday"

That's not a thing. But also.. I mean...

#adhd #audhd #autism #disability #neurodiverse #caturday #Australia #fetlife #kink #bdsm #swearing

Anyway, this was a quite interesting article about how the World swears that might have been written by a real human being.

Apparently AIs don't swear right or appropriately, because they have no mind to judge the situation, so that could be another linguistic tool to use against the cunting machines.

https://www.basicplanet.com/top-10-countries-that-swear-the-most/

#Swearing

...but some Yanks (or Brits playing Yanks) get it.

https://youtu.be/PNVEQgXsBgs?si=ZjbDtxxUsc5srNpc

#TheWire #Swearing

We Brits have a proud and noble history of vulgarities and swears, it really is a part of our fucking culture.

Studies have shown people who swear more are seen as honest and trustworthy

Wondering if Trump calling somebody a 'cunt' in the Oval Office would be the final act that breaks Gilead?

#Swearing

**Vulgarity in online discourse around the English-speaking world**

“_Australians might well be disheartened when they discover that they are not the top users of profanity among English-speaking countries. Their deep national attachment to the vernacular dates back to the original mix of slang, dialect and underworld jargon that gave rise to Australian English — fueled by anti-authoritarian sentiment, the colloquial part of the language expanded to become the feature that best distinguished the established citizen (or old chum) from the stranger (or new chum).”

Schweinberger, M. and Burridge, K. (2025) 'Vulgarity in online discourse around the English-speaking world,' Lingua, 321, p. 103946. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2025.103946.

#OpenAccess #OA #Article #DOI #Linguistics #Swearing #Vulgarity #StrongLanguage #English #Language #Academia #Academics @linguistics