Hmmmm. I'm not sure where you're coming from ... on one hand you seem offended that I had the temerity to dare to consider the node, yet on the other you talk about being offended by 'excessive prurience'. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "I do not think that word means what you think it means." Prurience refers to:

prurient: marked by or arousing an immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire; especially : marked by, arousing, or appealing to sexual desire

Perhaps you were trying to call me a 'prude'?

The important thing for me at this moment is that perlmonks in addition to being about the practice of programming perl or occasionally about being a professional that uses perl is that perlmonks is also a social space. Social spaces are also a place where great crude, gross, or even sublime things happen. Swearing or talking about sex is something that happens in those places. It isn't clear to me which sense of "fucked" was use here. Perhaps it doesn't really matter. Salty language isn't the norm here and I'm glad for that. This would be a very unpleasant place if that weren't true. That said, I don't think that an occasional blue word or two is bad either.

I suppose it's proportion and context. Also, I'm biased because that particular response if taken somewhat literally reminds me of some of my absolute favorite people on this planet. I have warm fuzzies just from reading that response.

/me rephrases the answer to the poll as "copulated" and wonders if that is less offensive.

That's exactly the point I was trying to make in a similar discussion a couple of years ago.

Why is it that some people will judge the 6 letter arrangement "fucked" as obscene, but the 9 letter arrangement "copulated" as not so?

And despite the anonymonks attempt to suggest that my expressed confusion was "careless wit", I still do not understand this. I know it to be the case. I know it to be surprisingly common. I even know that when I first heard a recent UK advert for a cold rememdy that referred to "snot", it made me feel uncomfortable--for reasons that I cannot explain. But offended?

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

"Too many [] have been sedated by an oppressive environment of political correctness and risk aversion."

Why is it that some people will judge the 6 letter arrangement "fucked" as obscene, but the 9 letter arrangement "copulated" as not so?

Well, I think that some people will and some won't. How many the former are compared to the latter ones is wholly beyond my understanding and knowledge. However, like all synonyms and unlike in programming languages where e.g. speaking of Perl for and foreach are exactly equivalent, they do not have exactly the same meaning. For one thing, speaking of the verb "to fuck", you can both "fuck someone" and "fuck with someone". Even in this case there are subtle differences, and although I'm not a native English speaker, the former can have negative acceptations. Indeed the verb, and the related noun, can have plenty of negative acceptations, mostly stemming -I suppose- from some prejudice with respect to the passive partner and possibly some implicit reference to nonconsensual sex. OTOH you only "copulate with someone". And, still modulo the imperfection of my knowledge of English, I believe that this verb is used as a technical one in the vast majority of cases and its use outside of technical context is likely to be humorous. For example if I'm dating with a girl, I bet friends at the pub would ask me if "we fucked", not if "we copulated": if they did so, it would be with a humourous intent. Speaking of which, yes: I'm convinced it would have fit better in the post that originated this thread, given that it was an attempt at humour, albeit a poor one. Incidentally, in English you "make love to someone" which somehow puzzles me: in Italian we do have a very similar expression the naive translation of which in English would be "to make love with someone". Even more curiously, in the south of our country they would use a variant that could be rendered as "to make at love with someone". Of course, all this has little to do with Perl, unless you want to consider the TMTOWTDIness of the thing!

I find obscene language very unprofessional, so I guess it fits the bill either way.

Oh, c'mon... "We Are Morons"...

It is sort of funny for me to hear you offer the idea that "obscenity is OK because it is adults talking to adults" (paraphrasing you), since that is one argument I think is particularly apropos to opposing obscene language.

You're indeed paraphrasing him, because that's not what he is suggesting. The claim is, fundamentally, that that particular verb (as of itself) is not obscene at all, let alone the idea of sexual intercourse. And i wholeheartedly agree with him. There are by far more obscene things. Of course, we simply do not and probably cannot agree on this, and going on would probably spawn an endless discussion. So this is my last take on it, and it's just to explain that for the exact same reasons as explained by those who voted to keep the "incriminated" node, or would have done so, I would have as well, notwithstanding the fact that I do consider that attempt at humour to be particular poor, which is the reason why I did downvote it.