Hot Damn, I got Jalapenoed

WARNING: THIS POST HAS SWEAR WORDS AND SENSATIONAL MATERIAL IN IT. IF THIS IS LIKELY TO OFFEND YOU, DON'T READ IT, PLEASE!!!!!

ALSO, I PROMISE NOT TO POST STUFF LIKE THIS ANY MORE THAN VERY RARELY. IT'S NOT MY STYLE TO CURSE AND SWEAR, BUT THIS IS IN THE INTEREST OF SCIENCE OR AT LEAST CURIOSITY.

I use Eudora for my email. It's different from Outlook or OE in a lot of ways. One of my favourites is the Jalapeno. If my friend sends me a message with swearing or other objectionable stuff in either the subject line or the body of the message, the message will be flagged with 1, 2 or 3 jalapenos. Who knows, maybe there are 4 for some messages, but I haven't received one like that...yet.

What I didn't know until today is that Eudora also jalapenoes outgoing messages. I found out when I sent a reply to a friend who had accidentally invited us to bring "nipples" to share at a party, when she meant to say "nibbles." I replied that I thought her message was funny, that I enjoyed it, and that she should keep her nipples inside where they would be warm. When I pressed "SEND," a Eudora message popped up, asking me to reconsider my message because it might offend the recipient. Using "nipples" earned my message a 2 jalapeno rating.

Hmmm, I thought, how does this work? For what words is it sensitive? Of course I had to play with it. Here are my discoveries:

• Anatomical terms (vagina, testicle, uterus, labia, vulva, scrotum, rectum) got my message 2 jalapenos.
• Pedestrian hard curses (What the fuck? and damn shit boogie) get 3 jalapenos. Curious about boogie? I think swear words are boring. I had to do something to jazz it up.
• Explicit words for a variety of sex acts (fellatio, rimming, fisting) got 3 jalapenos. Interestingly, Eudora's spellcheck knew I got it wrong when I spelled fellatio with one "l" but offered only bland and harmless alternatives. Had to go to dictionary.com to figure it out. Don't laugh! How often does one have occasion to actually spell it? Maybe in a thank-you note?
  
• Cunnilingus is not as offensive as fellatio. No jalapenos for this act.
  
• Also bestiality and necrophilia must be generally acceptable in polite conversation. Either that or the censor had a limited imagination when making the list. No jalapenos for these.
  
• Common lesser curses (piss, bitch, cock, crap, tits, whore, asshole) all got 3 jalapenos too.
• Many awful, terrible, upsetting things do not get jalapenos for their words (war, genocide, hate crimes, Nazi, fascist, capitalist, I'm all right Jack. Bully, extortion, homophobia, persecution, exclusion, brainwashing, Christian fundamentalist).
• Bad things that ignorant and/or cruel people say (fag, nigger, lesbo, dyke, kike) also earned 3 jalapenos.
• Chink, hate, lynch and "Gay marriage is a sin," did not get jalapenoed.

A jalapeno does not prohibit the sending or reading of messages. It's simply a flag to say, "Do you really want to send this?" or "Be careful, reading this might cause you to be offended."

Conclusion: Jalapeno system picks out many single words that might cause a reader to blush or become offended. It has a higher tolerance for scientific terms and a limited scope/vocabulary. It mostly recognizes common curse-words and vulgar sex and body references. I bet the Eudora inventors did not spend a lot of time or thought on the details of this part of the program. I sure would like to read their list and rationale.

I think it's okay, not terribly useful. More fun as a party game or idle distraction than an actual communication tool. (Ooooohhh "tool!" Wonder if that's a jalapeno word?)

Question: What rates just 1 jalapeno? What do you have to say to get 4?

mompoet - going to wash my mouth out now