Google, Word Choice and Nexus One
January 25, 2010
Short honk: I don’t have a Nexus One and I don’t plan on buying the device. Mother Google has caught my attention with each of my Google monographs. I try to steer clear. I did read “How Google’s Nexus One Censors Cuss Words.” If accurate, the story suggests that Google sees a dirty word and scrubs it out of the message. Not even IBM in its salad days would make the IBM Selectric so it would prevent the user from typing certain words. What if Charles Bukowski were still alive, keying poems on his Nexus One? Would the output be vintage Bukowski?
drunk and writing poems
at 3 a.m.what counts now
is one more
tight ######before the light
tilts out
Yep, just what Mr. Bukowski wanted, according to Mother Google and its nannytron.
Google knows more than a creative person. How reassuring. What about the references to off color subjects in Shakespeare’s comedies? What about the humor in the works of Plautus and Terence? Google would have fixed their work as well.
What a nanny society is emerging! If someone buys a device, the person can do what he wants with it in my opinion. Thank goodness I am over 65 and heading for the data center in the sky. I suppose when the Googlers, the TSA, and other nannyites arrive, I will not be allowed to write my opinions using unapproved words.
Stephen E Arnold, January 24, 2010
This is a freebie. I am expressing an opinion. I can envision a day when WordPress will delete any reference to nannies, wings, and guys like Charles Bukowski. Quite a world. I will report this to the National Archives.
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