Reader Sai says:
This is kind of weird: so, I’m trying to buy my friend an Apple gift card off of their website. My friend is pretty shy about celebrating her bday, so I wrote in the message that accompanies the card: “Happy birthday! I hope you aren’t shy to celebrate this year!” After I typed that, I got a message that deemed my message inappropriate?
Eh?
We couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Can you?
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Probably an improper regex (expressions to filter for swear words, etc.) on apple’s part, but I don’t see where the problem is at a quick glance.
The best way to work out whats inappropriate would be just to rewrite the message with one word at a time until the error displays again.
Could it be too long for a character count?
Oh, and see [en.wikipedia.org] for an idea of what I’m talking about.
“Shy to” is probably being improperly regexed.
Yep, doesn’t like ‘shy’ for some reason.
Isn’t this the oldest trick in the internet book? Where you type something nasty into the search bar and then replace the next screen with something nice.
ie. typing DIRTY NASTY SLUTS into google, and then on the results screen where you have websites full of dirty nasty sluts, change where you typed that to ‘my mother-in-law’ or something.
Could it be “shy to”?
Looks a little too close to “shyt”. Which looks a little too close to a word that is apparently inappropriate for gift cards.
Apple institutes both spell check and grammar check into their online giftcard program. Apple, in their relentless pursuit of excellence, are not able to permit Apple products to be given as gifts if the contain sloppy sentence constructions.
“Happy birthday! I hope you aren’t shy to celebrate this year!”
“Happy birthday! I hope you aren’t too shy to celebrate this year!”
apparently I’m just mean, the problem is ‘shy t’
In addition, most spam and dirty word filters will prevent the use of ‘celebrate’.
This is a modern slang term for those who use cellophane materials and products as masturbatory aids. Those who find these practices offensive are of course cellophobic.
I tried it out and once you remove the word “shy” from the message it allows it. You can also put single quotes around it – ‘shy’ – and it works.
Looked up definitions for shy and maybe it’s just considered a derogatory term for someone? Or maybe it’s just messed up.
Try it yourself
[store.apple.com]
@SkokieGuy: Oh dear lord.
@Jeff_McAwes0me: Happy birthday! I hope you aren’t shy celebrate this year!
works.
no, it’s because “shyt” is a way to get around dirty word filters when you want to type “shit.” Apple’s dirty word filter is not good enough to understand the difference between “shy to” and “shyt.”
Some places won’t even let you type “baseballs” because it contains the word “balls.”
I tried to review a computer product recently and was told that “AS5″ was innnapropriate. IT stands for the thermal paste named Arctic Silver 5. Thought that was weird, but I guess I can see why.
Happy birthday, I hope you aren’t celibate this year!
maybe you could substitute ‘bashful’, ‘timid’, or ‘embarassed’ for ‘shy’
wait a sec… what is wrong with a little inappropriate wording? I mean, why is apple censoring the words in a personal message!
I think it was rejected for being grammatically awkward. It should say “….aren’t too shy to celebrate…”
I’m guessing that the person(s) who typed in the “dirty keyword lists” entered ‘celebrate” instead of ‘celibate’.
Everyone knows “celebrate” means “mouth party”.
@SkokieGuy:
And those who enjoy these practices are invariably fans of Kool And The Gang.
I’ve included the word anal on a gift I bought for my fiancee once. Went through fine.
No dont ask, it wasnt like that.
Granted, I work with kids sites mostly, but there was a coworker testing something or other and entered her name “Virginia” into a field, and it wouldn’t let her use it because it contained “gin”. In that line of that, celebrate contains “bra”, or it could be the aforementioned “shy t”, but either way it looks like a dirty word filter run amok.
@B:
Thank you!
All this dirty talk makes me want to Apple my wife later. Maybe after we’ve watched “Two girls, one ipod”.
Interesting. I work for a company that manages and tracks gift cards. We also resell gift cards as well. Often times the messages that people write to each other are grammatically incorrect. We want to go in a change them because we don’t want people to feel stupid. AT the same time, it’s inappropriate for us to do so, and it’s not our job.
Reminds me of Beavis and Butthead, “We shouldn’t need TV to entertain us.” .. “He said ‘anus’, he he he he”. Yes, I saw it…
It might be the ‘bra’ in celebrate
@TropicalParadise: What they said. The person entered the dirty words, pressed enter, and then changed the words before taking the screenshot. And now Apple’s image, regardless of how you feel about them, has suffered.
Something similar happen to me this week at UWink. It did not like my name, Hassan. It kept telling me that my name was inappropriate. It took me forever to figure out that it did not like that ass is in my name. Sorry UWink. I guess my name is not common enough.
@chiieddy: Indeed, AOL actually filtered that exact thing for a time (1995). You couldn’t create a chat room name with words like Nebraska, brain, or Debra.
@Jack Loftus: Just like Google, you can try it yourself at store.apple.com. “Celebrate” passes, but “shy to” does not.
Don’t you see? Apple consumers aren’t allowed to be shy about anything. They have to be arrogant and proud. Shyness is just dirty.
@SkokieGuy: Then we have the whole new problem of a tooshy appearing. I’m sure Apple won’t approve of talking about tooshy’s and shyt on a giftcard!
I believe ‘shyt’ is spelt shite anyway, no?
I bet Richard Gaywood is also having trouble buying Apple gift cards.
@superchou:
yeah, this is the real problem. not why is the message inappropriate, buy why is apple policing the messages in the first place? i should be able to put any damn thing i want on my gift card.
I’ve always seen SHITE as well. But as it contains “shit” I would think SHYT is an attempt to get around a previously thwarted attempt at typing “shit.”
I don’t know why Apple would give a fuck what you typed on someone’s gift card. If I get money from someone, I don’t care if the card says, “fuck you motherfucker. here’s your shitty mother fucking gift card.” I say, “woo hoo! MONEY!”
I like VA White’s second sentence.
@MissTicklebritches: “maybe you could substitute ‘bashful’, ‘timid’, or ‘embarassed’ for ‘shy’”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that embarASSed would probably fail as well.
Awkward syntax aside, I don’t understand what that message is supposed to mean. Why would someone be embarrassed that it’s her birthday?
I prefer my cursing DRM-free, thank you. Off to Amazon to download some 2LiveCrew…
My son couldn’t register his name “Mitchell” at Webkins.
No Kajagoogoo for you!
@jiggersplat: Is it that shocking that Apple looked at the number of people who would complain about being able to send dirty messages vs the number of people who would complain about not being able to send dirty messages, considered which group is more likely to collectively not buy things as a result of allowing vs disallowing, and acted accordingly?
I mean it’s great if Apple decided to celebrate the freedoms of expression we all know and love, but they’re not a political force. They’re out to make as many customers happy so they continue to purchase there.
George Carlin must have been a PC fan.
It’s because the message didn’t include the words “Praise Apple, Praise God, Hallowed be Thy name”
@SF_iris: Apple makes Limahl cry. That is, if his shift manager at Tesco doesn’t mind.
@Ash78: There’s only one place where we can go
Where the price is right just to fu- erm, download albums without DRM
It’s always popular with the girls and the guys
‘Cause for all my money, it’s the best buy
I’ve run into places where you can’t type “saltwater” (look carefully). And it used to be on NFL.com you couldn’t buy a jersey for Randall Gay because if you typed “GAY” into the jersey creator, it would reject it.
Note to self:
Do not wish friends ‘The Greatest Fucking Birthday in the History of Fucking Birthdays MothaFucka!’ when buying them Apple products.