Sweary links #8

For your weekend ruding reading pleasure, a roundup of swearing-related stories and items from around the world.

Olaf doesn’t give a fuck.

An enlightened approach to children swearing.

The UK election campaign in The Thick Of It quotes.

‘Fuck This Court and Everything that it Stands For.’

Nice mug.

Expletive infixation gets the JSTOR Daily treatment.

An art dealer is forced to cover up fuck on a painting. (News report bowdlerises the fuck out of it.)

Rude and sweary cutthroat compounds.

A vigilante named ‘Wanksy’ is painting penises around potholes in Manchester to force council action.

On the history and use of the racial slur spic.

A religious Russian ‘iConophone’ aims to help users refrain from swearwords and ‘evil intentions’.

The normalisation of cursing among students.

Foul language in Dilbert.

Gobshite enjoys a moment of fame on Channel 4’s Countdown, courtesy of Mylene Klass.

Malaysia’s football champions sacked their goalkeeper for swearing at a police officer. He may face prison if found guilty.

This interview with David Simon on policing in Baltimore includes an interesting note on the old police/citizen code:

In some districts, if you called a Baltimore cop a motherfucker in the 80s and even earlier, that was not generally a reason to go to jail. If the cop came up to clear your corner and you’re moving off the corner, and out of the side of your mouth you call him a motherfucker, you’re not necessarily going to jail if that cop knows his business and played according to code. Everyone gets called a motherfucker, that’s within the realm of general complaint. But the word “asshole” — that’s how ornate the code was — asshole had a personal connotation. You call a cop an asshole, you’re going hard into the wagon in Baltimore. At least it used to be that way. Who knows if those gradations or nuances have survived the cumulative brutalities of the drug war. I actually don’t know if anything resembling a code even exists now.