A persnickety Washington Post reader recently reprimanded that paper for using the term “snafu,” which, he said, is but an acronym for “Situation Normal, All Fucked Up” and therefore inappropriate in a “family paper.” Leaving aside whether there actually is such a thing as a family paper any more, the letter once again raised the ethics and civility issue of whether a stand-in for an uncivil word is less uncivil than the word itself. The reader actually agrees with the position I have taken in the past, though he reaches some conclusions from it I would not. Continue reading →