Spam! An all-purpose 4-letter word.

As we struggle a more perfect union, I observe that more and more vowels are taking a knee replaced with an asterisk to mask the pedestrian words that have merged into the fast lane on the public discourse freeway. She*t. P*ss. F*ck. Low words abundant in high places. But just like we know it’s Superman hiding behind a suit and glasses, we can still read all the words Clark Kent has cleaned up. When the headline includes the word ‘b***h’, Superman knows it isn’t a blush or brush Clark’s talking about.

And so dear reader, when editing or masking words, I’ve taken the tack that vowels remain in place and instead choose to mask select consonants. Sh*t becomes s*it. P*ss becomes pi*s. H*ll becomes he*l, or *ell. Still readable. You still know of what we speak. S*it could be slit and pi*s could be pits but you know they’re not and you do not need to buy a vowel. You’ve got the puzzle covered.

But then the conundrum of how to censor f*ck. F*ck is not so simple. Censored any other way it still sounds like it reads. Maybe *uck? Nah. And so taking a trick from the Monty Pythons, I propose that ‘spam’ be used as a substitute for the words that are still too robust, still too raw, still too pedestrian to walk by the editor’s blue pencil. Spam, a four-letter word, it can be a noun, an adjective, or it can be verbed and we can leave the asterisk alone. Totally flexible that spam:

  • Go to spam.
  • Spamhead.
  • Spam it.
  • What the spam?
  • Spam right off.
  • He hasn’t a spamming clue.

Spam! Bonus: suitable as a substitute for longer words too:

  • That spam better have my money.
  • Grab them by the spam.

You know what’s been said. And the Pencesniffians can read through all that spam too!

Spam. Spam. Spam.

It works.

I offer this clip of Monty Python’s ‘Spam’ in the event you think I used too much spam in this post: