If you are a bit of a potty mouth, you probably noticed long ago that swearing of any kind on the 3DS is prohibited. This is a smart move by Nintendo, as keeping the handheld free from profanity will obviously please parents who are concerned about their children being exposed to naughty words, or worse still being the recipient of cyber-bullying on the 3DS. These restrictions apply to StreetPass Plaza, Friend Messages and of course Miiverse.
However the list of blocked words can be a bit overzealous at times, leading to seemingly harmless words being banned. Of course words have different meanings in different cultures, something the predominately UK-based writers of Nintendo Life have come to realise over the years when writing for an international readership.
Recently some Reddit uses have been tinkering around with the 3DS' firmware and have discovered the "bad word list" which is obviously very NSFW. Of course we couldn't resist having a look, if only to find words like "smeg" are banned, which seems fairly harmless to us. After all, Kryten from Red Dwarf would never swear would he?
It's very likely that a similar list of restricted words will be baked into Miitomo, so watch out!
If you're wondering who the heck Kryten is, then you need to watch Red Dwarf as soon as possible. A good starting point is below, where Kryten is still 'practicing' his insults...
[source reddit.com, via gonintendo.com]
Comments 103
what really annoys me is that i can not use the word "after" on miiverse, because in german it can mean "butthole"
I remember when you couldn't say "after" on Monster Hunter Tri chat on the Wii because it was German for anus.
But what if I want to brag about the kind of fridge I have?
this is brilliant!
@edhe YES !
French is my mother tongue, and I thought I knew most of the obscure slurs, but this list is teaching me new things.
...Wait, "Fatma"? But that's a name... I have a friend named Fatma...
Welp, I know what I'm bookmarking.
So a fake swear made up for a TV sitcom is now a real swear in Nintendo's eyes? Sense. Also, Red Dwarf XI this year! Get Hype!
*EDIT: Nintendo's more up to speed with swears than I am. I'd never heard of "beef curtains" before.
*EDIT 2: Just had a thought; how come Tomodachi Life lets a lot of these words through?
Hidiot isn't censored, nor is bubo.
@RainbowGazelle Tomodachi Life probably has its own equivalent set of criteria, so maybe Nintendo chilled a bit with that one.
@FinnTheWhovian
Ha, looks like Scunthorpe is also banned
Only one thing for it. Go to Blue Alert!
"Smeg" reminds me of another word that's just two letters longer.
Here's why I remember that word.
Behold, the greatest act of multiplayer unpleasantness ever witnessed in New Super Mario Bros. Wii's history. (The link will lead you straight to the relevant moment itself.)
https://youtu.be/1WSHBYkx1xs?t=630
When would anyone use the word windowlicker? Is this some strange fetish I've not heard about?
Nintendo's a smeg head!
@RadioShadow just checked the word up, aside for being a rather fun and freaky Aphex Twin track it's also a derogatory word for those who have mental health issues or disabilities.
I only read the article as it had a Red Dwarf pic and reference!!!
Thank you for a Red Dwarf-related story. You can never have enough. But honestly, smeg isn't really a swear word; the fact the BBC allowed it is proof enough.
But it does seem that zoophilia is in the banned list. There goes my game pitch.
Saved a copy. Will make future QA testing both more thorough and more interesting.
Its not just nintendo, I took a screen shot on Wolfenstien on PS4, posted it to the Pushsquare community , with the title "Nazi gun porn" it came up showing **** gun ****, so made no sense what so ever. I was surprised because Push square is normally more relaxed than NL on mild swear words.
@617Sqn Yes but this is about Nintendo themselves censoring swear words, not 3rd party sites that aren't run by them.
@6ch6ris6 And what is even more entertaining is that hardly anyone in germany uses that word outside of the medical realm.
I can't smeggin' believe this!
"Goit" is still ok I take it?
These censorships are funny, I can't type 'cockpit' in a metacritic review. Also, Tomodachi songs are as messed up as you want if you spell all the naughty lyrics phonetically! Sooo much fun..
Can anyone explain to me why I can't access polygon from my 3DS web browser page list?
I can if I google it and click on it from there oddly enough.
Some classics on this list. Not heard some of them in years.
'chinaliberal' on the other hand is a bit of a confusing entry.
Wait, am I reading that right, at the top of the very first page, is saying Disney banned on 3DS?
@Spike6958 yeah that confused me aswell xD
On IGN mustard is considered bad - it will make your comment "pending".
You can throw f-bombs all you want, but mustard is a big no-no.
Smeg is an expensive Italian brand of kitchen appliances. Apparently Mario and Luigi hates them.
Lol I just checked the first list and Disney is apparently censored?
Also feck has now officially been deemed by nintendo to be as bad as the true F word!
@Dave24 That's maybe because of mustard gas, which is an awful, awful thing.
The title of this article lied. You did not tell me why.
I personally liked "turdburglar"
@Nintendian : Not to lesbians, it doesn't. =P
Anyway, I'm annoyed that many innocuous words and names are banned. Ban obscene and commonly used terms, sure, but many of the more obscure ones are forbidding genuine players (however few 3DS owners who may actually have names like "Dick", "Humphrey" and "Gaylord") from using their actual names in-game.
And "Fatma" is a rather common name in Middle Eastern cultures. I have quite a lot of relatives with that name.
I liked the approach in Fire Emblem Awakening where the word "dastard" was used constantly instead of a specific swear word.
The list seems over excessive, but I don't mind as long as games with higher age ratings with swears are still allowed on Nintendo consoles.
Still less absurd than the filters on Neopets. T_T
On the subject of banned words, I notice you can say "hell" on NA Miiverse, but not on EU Miiverse.
As Peter Griffin would say, "Shut up Smeg!"
"Funbags"
I think I get the idea, but that's still a stretch.
I still remember the days I used to chat with my friends on the PS3 in Finnish. Pretty much every third word had to have it's letters s e p a r a t e d w i t h s p a c e s because the words contained letter strings that were considered as curse words in other languages. What does not help is the fact that some some Finnish curse words appear within completely normal words by chance.
@RupeeClock
Really? That is no reason to censor a word. At all. That's like cencoring the word pepper because pepper spray is a thing.
Smeg is a brand. Unfair discrimination.
@J-Manix98
Maybe there was some sort of meme that lead to IGN banning the word mustard, who knows?
@LunaticPandora Please don't reply to my posts, you have nothing to say which I want to hear.
@Sligeach Smeg only sell there products to morons, so they them selfs discriminate !
Kryten could make the whole place explode if he started on about Archie.
I love how not only did they create a list of "bad words," but they also decided to go ahead and ban "badword" for good measure. XD
Wow, that is a thorough list. Some of it making me cry with laughter, others making me scratch my head...but going to stay away from google just in case I see something I never wanted to
Don't blame Nintendo, the King of the Potato people made them do it.
Sorry I was too busy watching Are You Being Served? in the 90s
Let's keep the conversation civil please.
@RupeeClock
Hahaha! Yeah that's probably more likely.
Nintendo more internet savvy than I thought. Some of those words are pretty much unknown to normal people unless you surf the dark underground side of the web. Also catch on to the loophole typing that certain users like to use like the "misspelt" kurse wrods and letter number cu7se w07ds.
I don't know about the word smeg but I do know if you add "ma" at the end it becomes something nasty. Maybe that was the source word.
I miss Red Dwarf... I used to watch it on public access here in the US.
Also i think censoring on any platform is dumb.
If parents are worried about that stuff, maybe they should.. i dunno.. be parents?
Oh the irony of censoring this comment
~Waluigi
To be honest, Kryten's head looks a bit like a kitchen appliance. So he's a hypocrite.
Mmm, slow news day, eh?
What the heck is "smeg" supposed to mean? I don't feel like watching the attached video.
"smegma [smeg´mah]
the secretion of sebaceous glands, especially the cheesy secretion, consisting principally of desquamated epithelial cells, found chiefly beneath the prepuce."
Also, miiverse won't let me say 'balls'.
@J-Manix98 @RupeeClock Mustard might be considered by the overzealous to be bad because it contains "tard", short for retard or b**tard. Often pronounced musturd too. Some rather misguided parents also put mustard on their childrens' tongues as punishment for swearing. Real progressive.
Nintendo sure is hippity hoppity and coolstown when it comes to swear words. If they could just put a similar amount of effort into designing their consoles and account systems, that would sure be swell.
@Moon
Hey! Don't blame potatoes!
Blame the carrot people instead.
Funny thing....
"Skell" is a derogatory term for homeless people who do nothing but lay around and do drugs, and yet NoA saw it fit to use it in XCX.
Grud & Drokk!
Well, it is a vulgar word. To me, Red Dwarf is the greatest sci-fi ever created, but everything has its place.
Some of those are completely foreign to me. O_o
Oh well, at least "whomps" didn't seem to make the list!
What
Saving this, Next time I head to miiverse. 0_o
@RadioShadow "When would anyone use the word windowlicker?"
Oh smeg.
Let's refrain from any profanity.
~Waluigi
@pokedude583 I didn't actually realise how long that comment was until I posted it. I hope no one actually wasted their time reading it. And if anyone did, why on Earth would you waste your time on such unimportant things? What is wrong with you?
I decided to try and find the UK blacklist. It's number 4, no doubt about it. Doucke, slag, bugger, those types of words, I feel, are particularly British, they kinda give it away.
@toxibunny atleast one person knows, you have restored my faith good person of the internet.
This list is so BS. No wonder so many people get banned on Miiverse. I feel bad for anyone who bought Mario maker while being banned from miiverse, because Miiverse ban= no uploading levels
@Spike6958 I saw it. The top ones were all websites, so not Disney, but disney.ne or disney.jp from what I can gather
@Cestius I did. I bought Mario Maker and I've been perma'd. I ended up making an alt account SPECIFICALLY just for Mario Maker. And it is such FRACKING BS YOU HAVE NO IDEA
I thought it was obvious why we can't say the word, because I don't always take a shower, you learn stuff. But I forget not everyone is as nasty as me.
NO RAVIOLIS
@toxibunny I have no idea what half of those words mean.
@LemonSlice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma. Here's a warning, there's a very NSFW picture.. Unless you're being sarcastic, in which case I feel silly.
On the other hand, I'd like to try out some of the words Nintendo forgot, just to see how fast I can get banned without using words on the list.
@Sakura
Mustard on the tongue is an extremely mild punishment. But yeah I could see the whole "tard" thing coming into play.
Erm... Smegma?
I remember getting incredibly irritated that I couldn't use the word "snatch" in a Miiverse post. But I've moved on from that!
Santorum. That is all.
@J-Manix98 I think the most important factor is the family environment in which such punishment is carried out and the method of delivery. I work in mental health and am seeing a child who has just begun to speak again after 3 years of silence because of that "extremely mild" punishment. Obviously, there are other factors, including parental bonds not being there, which would be apparent in a normal family, but when I said "misguided", relating to that case, it's a euphemistic attribution. In a loving family, yes, it's mild. Not all families are loving, alas.
LOL, "bumbandit" is censored... xD
@6ch6ris6 MH3 did that as well. Often in chat you'd see "and ***** this" when on the speaker's end it was "and after this".
I learned more foreign curses just by reading that list, thanks Nintendo.
@Mr_Zurkon lmao so true.
@Sakura
Ah, I see what you're saying now. Sorry for sec there I thought you were comparing mustard on the tongue to the likes of say, a cattle prod, as far as disciplinary punishment is concerned. Which is plain silly, lol!
I think its important for kids to have consequences for doing bad things, but only if they know better.
Obviously every kid is different and requires different methods to get a message accross, but it should be done lovingly.
Hope that child you spoke of is getting better!
@Mr_Zurkon
Yeah, like carpetmuncher...
Some context for people not finding the video funny:
Kryten was a robot designed to be helpful and please his owners — sort of like a butler. In order to swear Kryten is literally fighting against his internal programming to be nice to his perceived owners.
Smeg is the "cheese" underneath an unclean foreskin so yeah... I can see why.
Lol I'm waiting for this article to be deleted out of embarrassment for the website, or at least modded to death in the comments.
It sounds like the word "Pastebin" should be banned too!
Well, smeg/smegma is the smelly substance that collects around the head of your kn*b if you don't wash it properly, so I can see why they'd censor it on 3DS.
@6ch6ris6 Now that's just r*tarded. It should maybe take into account what country you're from, as well as the basic, and at this point almost universal, English language.
@6ch6ris6 are you serious?
@Calllack yes i am
@Calllack yes i am
Haha I remember when I was watching E3 live on Nintendolife... and on the live chat when everyone was talking about cockpits in Star Fox... the word showed up as ****pit Then everyone was purposely typing cockpit to see their word getting censored and came to a point where Mr Whitehead had to come in and tell us to stop!
@J-Manix98 Thank you.
@6ch6ris6 woah... guess I never typed "after"
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