Posted on by wwducat

OK this is too funny not to share

And I’m even tweeting it because it’s indicative of the weird PC world that we live in today.

I’m searching for apartments in the San Diego area.

I was on a web site, that asked me to “Check availability” by sending contact information and sending a short note to the complex.

My note read:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with assigned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.
Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your assistance.
Regards

What actually showed up and was quoted back to me in a reply from the apartment complex was:

I’m looking for a 1 bedroom, with a**igned or covered parking. I’m moving to the area for work.

Do you have anything available and if so, when?
Thank you for your a**istance.
Regards
Do you see it?
 
There is some kind of filter that scanned the text and triggered on the ASS portion of the words. In order to protect the sensitive eyes of someone who might be offended by the first three letters of a word it changed the “SS” to “**”
 
This is an example of a couple of things in our society today.
 
HYPERSENSITIVITY and poor Quality Assurance.
 
There is no reason that the filter software couldn’t have examined the whole character group and compared it against a list of allowed words.
 
It’s called a Whitelist. (No Racist intent there.)
 
The white list would include:
 
Assistance
Assurance
Assigned
Assuage
.
.
.
 
and any other legitimate words from multiple language dictionaries that began with ass-
 
OR, and this might be the easier solution.
 
Use a Blacklist (Again no racist intent)
As an aside isn’t it amazing how common terms must now be explained lest someone be offended that you’re using a term that might be misinterpreted by a relatively small yet vocal group of people.
The Blacklist would simply have all the bad words you wanted to edit from the message. Typically, the blacklist is much shorter and therefore a much faster search and compare.
 
Ass
Asshole
Asshat
Dumbass
Asinine
Assfuck
Assfucker
Asswipe
Asslick
Asslicker
Assbite
Assgrab
Assgrabber
Asskiss
Asskisser
Asskick
Assmunch
 
The programming process is straightforward.  If the first 3 characters is ass, branch to compare with words in the blacklist. If there’s a match, then edit the naughty bits. If there’s no match then leave the text alone and pass the message untouched.
 
The really funny thing is that if you see A**HOLE you know it means asshole. If you see the “N” word, you know what that really means so honestly what’s the point?
 
If your company had to impose filters to protect your staff from offensive language, maybe you need to have a look at why people are sending your staff offensive messages in the first place.
 
Ahh PC what would we do if we weren’t bound by your brownshirt insanity?  
 
Oh yeah, we could have a sense of humor.
 

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