IP: Bursting with pride . . .

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> From: jod () ccat sas upenn edu (James J. O'Donnell)
> Subject: Bursting with pride . . .
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2000 18:49:39 -0500 (EST)
>
>
> I have to report that I have been responsible for posting a text on the
> net that has earned the distinction of being censorblocked for sexual
> content by I-Gear.  The text in question is
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/latinconf/10.html and consists exclusively
> of the original Latin text of book 10 of Augustine's *Confessions*.  The
> case is discussed (a link to the peacefire site from the Wired article
> reveals that it's my page at issue) at:
>
>         http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,34842,00.html
>
> The company in question thinks that its supersmart language translation
> feature (! good enough to work on Latin !) detected something offensive in
> the text, but it is more plausible (as is suggested in the Wired piece)
> that it is the frequency of the Latin word "cum" (meaning "with" or
> "when", but with an English homograph that is quite popular in sexually
> explicit discourse with few stylistic pretensions) that earns the
> distinction.
>
> Jim O'Donnell
> Classics, U. of Penn
> jod () ccat sas upenn edu