A conversation about the poop word

Something of a milestone for “7”, a four-letter word beginning with “s” - that commonly means excrement or a precarious predicament when combined with “deep” - appeared in Tom Bowers’ cover story on the worst jobs in Spokane . The word was in a quote from a worker at the sewage treatment plant, and rather than reproduce it here, I’m going to force everyone to go read it in context before making a judgment.

This isn’t the first time the word has appeared in the newspaper - a quick search found five other instances, as recently as November and as early as 1994. It isn’t something we take lightly - our stylebook prohibits profanity except in rare instances, and only with approval from the big glass office. In this case, both “7” editor Nancy Malone and Steve Smith himself gave the thumbs-up.

This is not to say that everyone agreed with the decision. Assistant city editor Dan Hansen said he felt the quote was gratuitous, and that the story would not be significantly different had the quote been omitted. Smith (who wasn’t present this morning) had previously said the quote was a great piece of color, and Malone was confident that the “7” audience wouldn’t be offended. Hansen wasn’t confident, however, that the readership could be so easily segmented.

Opinion page editor Doug Floyd said that community standards are changing - words such as “fart” or “butt” appear with some regularity these days, but would have been censored without discussion years ago. Despite this change, he said, some will inevitably be offended regardless of context. “The whole culture doesn’t move in lockstep,” he said.

Floyd added that while he didn’t have reservations about this usage in particular, he does occasionally have to remove expletives from syndicated columntists, notably Molly Ivins. In these cases, the sailor talk is usually gratuitous and seems to be inserted for shock value. On the other hand, the sewage worker was making clever use of the word to describe his attitude toward his job.

At this point, we haven’t heard any complaints from readers, and the folks that tend to be most offended about this sort of thing call early.

What do you think? Share your thoughts at News is a Conversation .

Errata

Speaking of slipping standards, Valley editor Jeff Jordan called out the use of the word “alright” in a headline on the IN Life cover. While this particular compacting of “all right” is fairly common, it is strictly verboten according to AP style.