Tech talk, social media, blogging, computing tips and tricks
Cursebird- What the &*%!ing Tweet?
April 8th, 2009 · by David Bradley >> 2 Comments
Kim Woodbridge just alerted me to Cursebird, which given the recent tweetiness of Sciencetext you may guess is a tool to determine whether you swear a lot on twitter. It scans your tweets for expletives and gives you a ranking.
Needless to say Kim and I are almost angelic, apparently we don’t even feature in Cursebird’s ranking system we are so cuss free (NSFW link). However, there are others I could name and shame who apparently swear like a primary school teacher, a children’s TV presenter, or an enthusiastic porn star (you know who you are Octane.
Interestingly, Cursebird provides a nice bar chart showing the top five curse words used on Twitter. The imaginary past participle of “to twit” features prominently, but others one would not wish to display in delicate company, which is why the Cursebird link is NSFW (not safe for work).
Meanwhile, while this site is really nothing more than an amusing internet sideshow, once word gets around human resources (HR) departments you can betcha recruiters will be checking you out to see just how sweary you are online. Personally, I think it’s a bad move to swear online, or indeed in mixed public company. What you do down the pub with your mates is a different matter. But, there is always someone who will be offended by your effing and cee’ing. So my advice keep the flipping swears to yourself unless you want to offend, and in which case don’t expect the easily offended to offer you a job any time soon!
2 responses so far ↓
Kim Woodbridge // Apr 8, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Nice use of the header – it never occurred to me to put the curse words in between the quotes.
I also never thought about potential employers being offended by cursing online – I just don’t want to offend anyone who might be thinking about hiring me. I curse plenty in real life
David Bradley // Apr 8, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Yeah, hoped you wouldn’t mind my putting a cuss word into your virtual voicebubble! Yeah, that’s my feeling. I was at a conference recently where some of the delegates used expletives quite liberally in their talks! It amazed me. This was a mixed audience (in terms of gender and age range) and really didn’t warrant swearing to get a point across. I shouldn’t mention the main culprit but he’s a very well known medical blogger and he was using quite crude language
My favorite primary school teacher often told the class how resorting to swearing was indicative of a limited vocabulary. Of course, I would counter that by suggesting that as I know the proper words and the swear words my vocab is actually larger, but that wasn’t the point she intended, of course.