Scunthorpe vs. Pastebin
A couple of years back I tracked down the basis of a story I'd long been aware of, but hadn't found the full details for. My source had been Isaac Asimov, who in his autobiography and elsewhere mentioned work he did as a research assistance while a graduate student at Columbia University. One project he worked on was for a professor who was researching the resistance to technological advances, and the background formed the basis for one of Asimov's first science fiction short story sales.
With some legwork, I found that the professor in question was a Dr. Bernard J. Stern, PhD., a sociologist, and in fact a copy of the essay existed as a government publication from 1937, now hosted at the Internet Archive. The scan is hard to read, and not OCRd, so I retyped it, as one does (about 100 pages, double-spaced, for the old-school typists out there).
Ideally I'd like to have that posted to my much-neglected blog. In the meantime, at least making the Markdown available somewhere online seemed useful, so I created a Pastebin which I could then link to, and have repeatedly over the years since: https://pastebin.com/raw/Bapu75is
Earlier today, linking it once again, I had the presence of mind to verify that the link did in fact work, and found it did not.
On re-submitting the text, the submission was rejected with the admonition "potentially offensive or questionable content".
Curious.
Digging through Pastebin's site, I found a support contact and emailed that. Lo, a response!
Your paste has been flagged due to some of the keywords found.
Please remove these words and your paste will be ok to publish as normal
These keywords are as follows:
exploited
grosvenor
xxx
cocks
retarded
retard
Now, I could of course see how these might prove problematic. I could also see how they might possibly not actually be as problematic as they seem, given time and context.
Of these:
- "Exploited" appears with the meaning "put to productive use" in the context "Delay in the effective utilization of tractors is in many countries and regions due to the system of land ownership prevailing, for in order to be exploited profitably, tractors require vast concentration of land areas, as in the western United States and in the collective farms of the Soviet Union."
- "grosvenor' is a proper name used in a reference citation: "William M. Grosvenor has, in Chemical Markets, expressed the sentiments of modern corporate management toward the utilization of new inventions"
- "xxx" appears as the Roman numeral for 30, again in a reference citation: "Business Chronicle, vol. xxx (1930), p. 1." The string appears in numerous other contexts, also largely reference citations, e.g., "Lonberg-Holm, K., and Larson, C. T., "Trends in Building Production", in Real Estate Record, vol. cxxxvii (Apr. 18, 1936), pp. 19--25."
- "cocks" describes steamship components, in a cited 1790 description by Benjamin Franklin Bache: "A boat on this construction, barring all accidents of breaking paddles, cranks, gudgeons, watchwheels, chains, Loggerheads, cocks, valves, condensers, pins, bolts, pistons, cylinders, boilers, and God only knows how many more useful parts, would almost stem the tide of the Delaware..."
- Both "retard" and "retarded" are used in their original sense, "to slow": "By opposing franchises for electrical lighting, the gas companies retarded its application." "Similarly, the cradle or French telephones were long in use on the Continent before they were installed in the United States and then a service charge was added largely in order to retard their introduction." And "Changes within the electric industry have been retarded by the buying and suppressing of patents by large corporations which dominate the field."
- "nazi". Well, OK, you've got me, because here, the term is used, in 1937, to describe the actual extant government of Germany at the time, the National Socialist Party: "The result is that styles of writing and alphabets become tenacious. The ancient and medieval scripts prevailed for over five centuries, the Gothic for over eight centuries, and is today being revived in Nazi Germany."
None of these usages strikes me as problematic.
I'm somewhat reminded of the (mythical) story of a US Navy aircraft carrier encountering a radar return whilst at sea:
Americans: “Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.”
Canadians: “Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.”
Americans: “This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.”
Canadians: “No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.”
Americans: “THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES’ ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT’S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.”
Canadians: “This is a lighthouse. Your call.”
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-obstinate-lighthouse/
I've found an alternate posting site (https://rentry.co/szi3g) that seems not to have issues with the text in question. Pastebin's language hangups may prove embarrassing. I refer them to the Scunthorpe problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem
This is English, as used. Your call.
#scunthorp #pastebin #exploited #grosvenor #xxx #cocks #retarded #retard #language
