In my post yesterday I blocked out a particular word. It actually took me a while to work out exactly how to block it out.
I realized, in the process of experimentation, that different ways of blocking the same word convey different meanings. I am speaking not of denotative meanings, but rather of connotative meanings, which in some contexts are more important.
If you block out a █████ word, readers get interested. You are obviously trying to stop them from seeing something naughty.
If you block out a ◙◙◙◙◙ word, readers just get curious. Whatever could be going on behind those funny little circle things?
But if you block out a ░░░░░ word, readers understand that you are simply removing something unpleasant from polite conversation. Which was exactly my intent.
It’s easy to remove the redactions though, all you need to do is █████████████████████████ and then paste the content into another file.
Yes, I tried that.
But then a █████ showed up in my █████. Before I knew it he was trying to █████ all over my █████. I tried to explain that the █████ was ███ █████ the banana, but he wouldn’t █████ when he saw that the █████ in my bedroom was covered with █████.
Don’t you hate when that happens?