Does The Times Have Its Act Together on Vulgar Language

Should The Times write about a company if it can’t - or won’t â€" put the name of that company in the article

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it

But it happened this month when Ron Lieber, the business reporter and columnist, wrote about a Web site that helps people organize their financial lives. It has a word in it that only in the rarest of occasions appears in The Times, both in print or online.

Because of The Times’s style rules, which prohibit the use of such language except in the rarest of cases, the article carefully - coyly - wrote around the questionable word, in describing how a Seattle widow reacted to her husband’s death:

In the many months of suffering after Mr. Hernando’s death in July 2009, she beat herself up while spending dozens of hours excavating their finncial life and slowly reassembling it. But then, she resolved to keep anyone she knew from ever again being in the same situation.

The result is a Web site named for the scolding, profane exhortation that her inner voice shouted during those dark days in the intensive care unit. She might have called it getyouracttogether.org, but she changed just one word.

Many readers got it. Some did not.

Mr. Lieber said he heard from some readers that they were puzzled and couldn’t find the site. He said he was frustrated.

“I think if we’re going to devote an entire story to a company or service, we ought to be able to print its name once,” he said.

It’s hard to argue with that. What harm would it do

I talked with Philip B. Corbett, associate managing editor for standards, who agreed that it was unfortunate that the article caused confusion but nevertheless said that keeping coarse language out of The Times is worthwhile.

And, he said, if The Times ! starts using the names of Web sites with that particular word in it, then there might be no end to it, since there are so many. What’s more, where do you draw the line What if - let your imagination run wild â€" the Web site had a significantly more offensive word in it

Because I abide by The Times’s style rules, I’ll rely on the links above to satisfy curious readers. (Of course, you can’t do that from a printed page; that’s part of the problem.)

Readers often complain about similar kinds of things in The Times.  Last fall, The Times insisted on referring to a hit Off Broadway show as “The Cockfight Play,” though that was not its name.  In November, Jane Brody wrote about a quit-smoking book without using its title or, in this case, linking to the book.

I understand that The Times has conservative standards about language.  Its style book makes that clear:

“The Times virtually never prints obscene words, and it maintains a steep threshold for vulgar ones. In part the concern is for the newspaper’s welcome in classrooms and on breakfast tables in diverse communities nationwide. But a larger concern is for the newspaper’s character. The Times differentiates itself by taking a stand for civility in public discourse, sometimes at an acknowledged cost in the vividness of an article or two, and sometimes at the price of submitting to gibes.”

However, it occasionally makes exceptions. I probably would have! made a d! ifferent call on the article about the business Web site.   I also think the name of the play deserved to be used accurately.

Sometimes, clarity and accuracy trump matters of taste.

Meanwhile, the rules on language keep evolving, even at The Times. And this sort of close call may turn out to be a lost cause. As Mr. Corbett put it: ”We’re definitely fighting a rear-guard action.”