Shades of meaning

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.

2 thoughts on “Shades of meaning”

  1. It’s easy to remove the redactions though, all you need to do is █████████████████████████ and then paste the content into another file.

  2. 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?

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