In a move designed to protect citizens, the Pakistani Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has compiled a list of ‘obscene’ words and phrases that will be banned from use in SMS messages.
The PTA has distributed a dictionary of banned phrases that includes 1,109 English words and 586 Urdu words to Pakistan’s mobile service providers, calling for them to ban their use from Monday 21st November.
Along with the obvious (and unprintable) expletives – including 50 phrases using ‘fuck’ and 17 using ‘butt’ – the PTA has come up with a whole host of weird stuff. Some highlights are ‘monkey crotch,’ ‘beat your meat,’ ‘flogging the dolphin’ and – inexplicably – ‘athletes foot.’
According to the PTA, the ban is meant to control spamming and comes after numerous complaints from the public regarding offensive text messages. “Nobody would like this happening to their young boy or girl,” a PTA spokesman said.
Pakistani’s have been tweeting their response to the ban, revealing that it could in-fact introduce a whole new vocabulary to the country as people search to find out the obscene meaning to things like ‘head lights’ and ‘pocket pool.’
However, one of the best observations came from tweeter ‘anthonypermal’ who commented, “You know, with the word ‘creamy’ banned, one wonders what cheap-ass erotic novel the compiler was reading.” Barbara Cartland maybe?
By Rebecca Jones, Twitter RebeccaEJones
