1747 Bleep

Sounds can fool us and mislead us. Like recently there was something in one of my commentaries that was a little too harsh for radio. The things you hear on TV and Cable these days are still not acceptable for all ears radio. It's better to be tame where possible. So one of my words was bleeped.
I noticed something interesting. When the word that was being substituted with a bleep was actually bleeped, it suddenly sounded way worse. Somehow the process of bleeping imbued it with even more profanity than the original word.
Why? Because we all have pretty vivid imaginations. And we assume the bleep, which we know obscures bad words, must be obscuring the worst word we can think of. The word we ourselves would like to be protected from.
Then my editor took it one step further. He double-bleeped it. Yep. He gave the single word he was bleeping the dread two syllable bleep. Now some really intense words were conjured up in the bleeping imaginations of listeners. And now even my reputation was totally bleeped.
Another example of how little things can cause big changes. Here's another. I heard the name Gary Glitter on the radio. Actually, what I heard first, thanks to a bump in the road and little static on my not so solid state radio, was the name Barry Glitter.
And I thought, wow, what's in a name? Change only one letter and your imagination conjures up a whole different type of guy. Gary Glitter, obviously an over-the-top Bowie-esque glam-rocker.
Barry Glitter? An accountant. Black horn-rimmed glasses. Calculator watch. Allergy reddened nostrils. One of the few human beings on the planet that would actually express anger in conversation by using the word bleep.
Language is so bleeping cool...
America, ya gotta love it.