Bleeping ... kind of

The weekend was pretty intense and the radio in the old pickup isn't that good, especially when you're far from civilization, but I swear I heard this yesterday morning on This American Life: They did a story on a guy who is a screaming jerk. He goes around asking people what they think of him. Turns out, they all agree: He's an "asshole". His mother doesn't use that word, but she confirms the diagnosis.

So, the word asshole is used constantly throughout, with a bleep. But they bleep the second syllable, not the first, so that instead of [bleep]hole, you get ass[bleep] time after time. Many readers who didn't hear the story will probably say "cute" (or "oh for cute", if you're from parts of the Upper Midwest).

But the bigger point here is how slippery perception can be: I think my brain must have 'corrected' that bleep the first five times or so that it ran, before I suddenly noticed that they were bleeping the 'wrong' part.

Now that I've ruined the joke (sorry about that), feel free to go here and listen to the show.