Unheralded.fish used the F-bomb the other day in a headline. Kind of. Sort of.

The word and its presentation in the headline offended a few of our Fish writers. They objected. Editors didn’t take the issue lightly. Discussions and debate ensued. Many discussions.

The process may have helped give The Fish a better sense and identify of who and what we are.  We are not a newspaper and are not bound by newspaper traditional rules and regulations and restrictions imposed because of mass audience and advertiser sensitivity. That’s a very good thing for now.

So what the hell is the Fish?

We ask ourselves that quite often, believe it or not.

The answer is a slippery thing.

One thought that surfaced described Fish as  “An Upper Midwest intersection for multimedia expression.”

Hmmm. The translation? Once in awhile, some of the expression will be in the form of profanity.

In a blog post that will be published Saturday, veteran writer and educator Nancy Edmonds Hanson will provide a personalized perspective about profanity and its use in not only the media but in society as well. Fact is, she says, times have changed and so have standards. She says: “Was there one single reader of Unheralded who read those asterisks as “fork”?

Unheralded.fish isn’t the only publication that’s scratched its head and agonized (probably way too much) about the use of profanity on its pages. The following links will connect you to stories about the use of profanity in the media, both in print (traditional, old-school newspapers), magazines and the Web.

The common narrative among the stories echoes what Edmonds, Bob Dylan and many others have said for eons.

http://ajr.org/2014/04/04/swear-words-news-stories/

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2004/06/when_do_papers_print_the_fword.html

https://editdesk.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/profanity-news-stories/

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2010/apr/14/swearing-guardian