"Kicked our ass" vs. "Kicked our [butt]"

Just like watching The Daily Show and having Jon Stewart's fucks bleeped out. But you know what he's saying, so why bleep? Actually, sometimes I think the bleeps make it funnier.

 

Yeah. Bleeps are funny.

 

You simply can't change the quote. And in 2009, is ass offensive?

 

Like most everything else, you can make black-and-white judgments all day if you want, but you'll be following what your newspaper says. And there are almost as many different lines in the sand as there are newspapers.

Chances are you'll disagree with at least some of what your newspaper believes; you may feel it's not good journalism, or whatever. No matter. They tell you to march right, you'll march right.

 

A [bleepin'] playground for the [bleepbleepers].

 

Couple of years back, a local paper used a quote which included the word "shit" in a hed.

Talk about (crap)-storms ...

 

Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News is the best that I've ever read using bleeps in stories. He'd write, "you motherbleeper" or "kiss my bleep" and the quote would make sense.

 

Ha. I kinda like that.

I quoted a guy once for my school paper who said he "ate, shit, slept, and played" whatever sport it was. I don't remember at the moment, I think it was basketball. Anyway, my adviser circled it as he proofread and wrote, "Way to quote him, but is this classy?"

I ended up taking it out completely, but it's stuck in my head ever since. What was the right thing to do there?

 

Were you going for classy, or trying to accurately portray your subject?

 

Yeah, my thoughts too. I wimped out.

 

It depends upon whose it is.

 

Just for the hell of it, I try to work in the phrase "tit for tat" whenever possible.