To the Editor:

I could not agree more with the Von Haug family’s criticism [“You simply made people pissed off and disgusted, Aug. 13, 2020] of your July 30 editorial’s [“Sexism, like racism, is systemic”] use of uncontracted, foul, disgusting words you feel are necessary to convey a news story’s point (even if enclosed in cute, little quotation marks).

I’ve worked in construction for over five decades, heard all the words, probably used all the words, but only in the “proper” situation — sorry!

However, I think most readers can recognize the shortened, hyphenated version of these words without possibly encouraging their use by “young innocents.”

Why not leave their usage to the sex tabloids that most kids (hopefully) don’t read?

Or you may continue with your “yellow journalistic” tendencies and then adopt the New York Times’ motto as your own: “All the news that’s s--t to print.”

Dennis Houlihan

East Berne

Editor’s note: For an explanation of why The Enterprise quotes slurs when they are germane to a news story, see: “From the editor: When parents can’t shield their children from the adult world, they can help them make sense of it,” Aug. 6, 2020.

We cannot imagine the “proper” situation to use a misogynist slur like the one we quoted.