The following is a guest post written by Aquila Arts' very own Debra Landau. WARNING: Offensive language involved ... in fact, that's the whole point of this entry!
I am officially obsessed with Words With Friends. Entered the world of iPod Touch only 3 months ago and being that I'm a woman of a certain age with better things to do, took my time navigating this new world. Only when laid up with dental surgery a couple weeks ago did I start exploring games. Decided to play WWF against myself to learn the ropes. Under the influence of Percocet I wound up playing with myself a lot - like you do. And so it began...
At one point in my second game I had GOT on the board and the tiles FAG ready to go. I had to try. WWF responded with "Sorry, faggot is not an acceptable word." Hard to argue with that statement, really. Same message for "fag." In a later game I tried FUCK and same message. OK, so WWF is not Scrabble and vulgar and offensive terms are off the table. Except that in the same late-night game, WWF accepted YID, which, according to New Oxford American Dictionary, is not only an offensive term, it is also capitalized. So, I went to the official Words With Friends rules page and read the following:
Now I'm confused. All sorts of swear words and derogatory terms are listed on the ENABLE.txt file they reference. However, if you hit the "suggest a word" link on the rules page, that page does say WWF will not accept "derogatory words or racial slurs." So, "yid" is not derogatory?
I soldiered on and discovered that GOY and PUD were acceptable, attesting to how much Yiddish has entered our lexicon. (As a child I was taught "pud" was the Yiddish equivalent of "dick." But my dictionary lists "pud" as British slang for pudding. Really?) So, maybe that explains how YID got the OK. Then I scored with SHIT and TWAT (not in the same game, for better or worse) and figured maybe the F-word is just too taboo. And then I got the tiles QNIGGERT. It was good to see the ensuing WWF rejection, although my N-word would have received a double-word score had it been accepted.
But then, in one game WOP and CUM were both rejected. And then I went below the hard deck yet again, but this time there was danger: KIKE was accepted. Are you kidding me? For us of the Hebraic persuasion, that's our N-word. So, what gives?
Now, I don't think I'm one of those Jews who is always looking for anti-Semitism. I was raised by an ex-Catholic woman raised in Nazi Germany (long story) and she and my childhood friend Phil desensitized me. Sunday afternoons, after I was done with Hebrew school and Phil was home from Mass, we would play in my yard with Phil telling me all about how I was going to Hell. Because of these little chats, for years I thought "chosen people" meant that Jews were chosen to go to Hell. Anyway... While I don't deny anti-Semitism exists in the here and now, I believe we Jews have it pretty good, overall. But this WWF "glitch" does give me just a little pause.
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to a C-word opportunity. And the verdict is...? Wait, didn't I say I was a woman of a certain age with better things to do? I think I need an intervention.
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I am officially obsessed with Words With Friends. Entered the world of iPod Touch only 3 months ago and being that I'm a woman of a certain age with better things to do, took my time navigating this new world. Only when laid up with dental surgery a couple weeks ago did I start exploring games. Decided to play WWF against myself to learn the ropes. Under the influence of Percocet I wound up playing with myself a lot - like you do. And so it began...
At one point in my second game I had GOT on the board and the tiles FAG ready to go. I had to try. WWF responded with "Sorry, faggot is not an acceptable word." Hard to argue with that statement, really. Same message for "fag." In a later game I tried FUCK and same message. OK, so WWF is not Scrabble and vulgar and offensive terms are off the table. Except that in the same late-night game, WWF accepted YID, which, according to New Oxford American Dictionary, is not only an offensive term, it is also capitalized. So, I went to the official Words With Friends rules page and read the following:
All words labelled as a part of speech (including those listed of foreign origin, and as archaic, obsolete, colloquial, slang, etc.) are permitted with the exception of the following: proper nouns (words always capitalized), abbreviations, prefixes and suffixes standing alone or words requiring a hyphen or an apostrophe.
Now I'm confused. All sorts of swear words and derogatory terms are listed on the ENABLE.txt file they reference. However, if you hit the "suggest a word" link on the rules page, that page does say WWF will not accept "derogatory words or racial slurs." So, "yid" is not derogatory?
I soldiered on and discovered that GOY and PUD were acceptable, attesting to how much Yiddish has entered our lexicon. (As a child I was taught "pud" was the Yiddish equivalent of "dick." But my dictionary lists "pud" as British slang for pudding. Really?) So, maybe that explains how YID got the OK. Then I scored with SHIT and TWAT (not in the same game, for better or worse) and figured maybe the F-word is just too taboo. And then I got the tiles QNIGGERT. It was good to see the ensuing WWF rejection, although my N-word would have received a double-word score had it been accepted.
But then, in one game WOP and CUM were both rejected. And then I went below the hard deck yet again, but this time there was danger: KIKE was accepted. Are you kidding me? For us of the Hebraic persuasion, that's our N-word. So, what gives?
Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to a C-word opportunity. And the verdict is...? Wait, didn't I say I was a woman of a certain age with better things to do? I think I need an intervention.
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