The R-Word

George Carlin had a famous routine about “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” (cover your ears, kids): “Shit, fuck, piss, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.” This was the 1970’s, but even today, despite the advent of HBO, Showtime, and presidential comments about “shithole countries” and grabbing women by the pussy, these words are still pretty much verboten on broadcast television.

I was thinking about this while playing Boggle online—one of my regular timewasters. Three of Carlin’s forbidden words—shit, piss, and tits—are perfectly acceptable—albeit not particularly high-scoring, worth a measly six, seven, and four points, respectively (which seems unfair to poor little tits). The other four are still off limits.

The administrators of online Boggle, though, have lately begun displaying a strange and arbitrary prudishness. About three months ago, I noticed that I could no longer play the word “ass”—a previously unexceptionable source of three points. Thus, while “shit” remained acceptable, the place from whence it springs—a donkey, that is; what did you think I meant—was suddenly beyond the pale. Even stranger, “asses” is still OK. One donkey is bad, but two or more are. . .adorable, I guess.

And just this week, I noticed that another word seems to have been removed from the active lexicon: “rape.”

Now rape, of course, is horrible, but the word is . . .just a word. Do the game administrators somehow believe that allowing a player to collect seven points for identifying r, a, p, and e tiles in proximity to each other is somehow promoting sexual violence? Are they concerned that the word is “triggering”? Remember, the only person who “sees” the word is the player who types it in: If someone is traumatized by the word, then not allowing the word won’t obviate someone’s ability to “see” it. If “rape” is censored, why not “murder,” “molest,” “torture”?

I confess, I am somewhat uncomfortable about this whole discussion. I feel like one of those bigots complaining about not being allowed to use the N-word: “But, they call each other ‘N——‘! Why can’t I say it?!?” Obviously, I’ll get over the trauma of not being able to use “rape” in an online game of Boggle. But any form of arbitrary censorship—no matter how trivial—should be questioned. Why is it happening? What’s the reasoning?

What’s next?