Grawlix
Grawlix (/ˈɡrɔːlɪks/) or obscenicon is the use of typographical symbols to replace profanity. Mainly used in cartoons and comics,[1][2] it has been described as the graphical equivalent of a bleep censor.[3]
Grawlixes typically use "unpronounceable" characters that might be found on a typewriter or computer keyboard, including at signs (@), dollar signs ($), number signs (#), ampersands (&), percent signs (%), and asterisks (*).[3] They may also feature other unusual shapes such as spirals.[3] These characters may resemble the letters they replace, such as "$" standing in for "S".[3]
History
[edit]
The first known grawlix appeared in November 1, 1901 story of Gene Carr's comic strip Lady Bountiful, with the title "Lady Bountiful is Shocked": the cartoon depicts two children arguing, with one of their speech bubbles simply containing the characters "!*!-!-" followed by a spiral with a line around it and a series of lines around a dot. The character of Lady Bountiful objects to "such language".[4]
The grawlix continued to expand its usage throughout 1902 and 1903.[4] In December 12, 1902, The Katzenjammer Kids became the second comic to adopt them.[4]
In 1964, American cartoonist Mort Walker popularized[a] the term "grawlix" in his article Let's Get Down to Grawlixes,[1][4] which he expanded upon in his book The Lexicon of Comicana.[4]
The emoji U+1F92C 🤬 SERIOUS FACE WITH SYMBOLS COVERING MOUTH represents a face with grawlixes over the mouth. It was proposed in 2016[6] and accepted into Unicode 10.0 in 2017.
In June 2018, the word 'grawlix' was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.[3][7]
In November 2022, Merriam-Webster and Hasbro added the word to the seventh edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, citing familiarity among younger players.[8]
In March 2025, the word 'grawlix' was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.[9]
Etymology
[edit]A Merriam-Webster blog post states that the word grawlix was coined by cartoonist Mort Walker (creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey) and may have originated from the word growl, which is a sound a person makes when they are angry.[3] Walker coined several words related to comic strip art, although he attributed the coinage of "grawlix" to Charles D. Rice of This Week magazine in Walker's book Backstage at the Strips.
Notes
[edit]- ^ Although Walker is often credited with having created this terminology, in 2013, comics scholar Maggie Thompson discovered that Walker was using terms invented by Charles D. Rice, in an article published in This Week and subsequently reprinted in What's Funny About That (1954). Thompson also observed that, although Walker credited these symbols to "Charlie Rice of This Week magazine" in his book Backstage at the Strips (1975), "many of us [including Thompson herself] had assumed [that this] was Mort's joke about an imaginary scholarly attribution".[5]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Nordquist, Richard (March 4, 2019). "What the @#$%&! Is a Grawlix?". ThoughtCo. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Zimmer, Ben (October 9, 2013). "How Did @#$%&! Come to Represent Profanity?". Slate. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f "What the #@*% Is a 'Grawlix'?". Words We're Watching. Merriam-Webster. April 18, 2018. Archived from the original on October 25, 2023. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
- ^ a b c d e Edwards, Phil (February 22, 2019). "How #$@!% became shorthand for cursing". Vox. Retrieved December 17, 2023.
- ^ Maggie's World 009: Research, Obsession, and Obsessive Research, by Maggie Thompson, at the San Diego Comic-Con; published September 3, 2013; retrieved May 22, 2023
- ^ Karadeniz, Tayfun (October 31, 2016). "L2/16 - 313 Emoji Faces Proposal for Unicode v10" (PDF). Unicode. Retrieved July 12, 2023.
- ^ "GRAWLIX Definition & Meaning". Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on May 18, 2024. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
- ^ "'Yeehaw, bae,' official Scrabble dictionary adds 500 new words". PBS NewsHour. November 16, 2022. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
- ^ "grawlix, n. meanings, etymology and more". Oxford English Dictionary. Archived from the original on April 19, 2025. Retrieved April 19, 2025.
Further reading
[edit]
- Stevens, Heidi (May 18, 2011). "What the grawlix?". Chicago Tribune.
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