Searching 32 million academic papers for obscene acronyms hidden in the titles

Searching Hidden Initials Thesis AKA Study Organising Academic Papers Yielding Targetted Initials Towards Word Applicability - ‘Naughty Knowledgebase’

Running the confessions account @fesshole a confession came which I thought was worth a bit of an investigation.

Fesshole 🧻 @fesshole

When I publish serious academic research papers, I try to get the initial letters of the title to spell something obscene.

Not that I want to out the specific poster, but the general idea, it just sounds findable. I mean, all I have to do is get a list of academic papers, turn them into acronyms and then search for a list of words in them.

Turns out there’s a list on Unpaywall - 32 million papers, to be fair this is only papers which aren’t behind paywalls, but still, it’s a big number, it’s enough data to play with, and it only takes 12 hours to download. Blimey, that’s a big file.

OK, I bashed out a bit of code and set it going and it found approx 80,000 titles with fragments of swearwords in the titles. Presumably most of these are by accident but it means we have a place to start looking. I refine the code a little more so it can sort stuff into categories like “direct hit” and “nearly” and “two swears, fucking hell”.

If you want to play with the code and the data, I’ve bunged it up on GitHub but really why don’t we list a few of the funnyish ones I found?

“CRAP SHIT US “

Well technically this is Crap Shit U, but fuck it, close enough.

“K, shit cock”

Is this a false positive? Only Bruce and Linda can tell us now.

“I, crap”

Laura and Rachel. You know that spells out "I crap" right? YOU NAUGHTY LADIES.

“PRICK”

Cyber flashing? Hiding a prick in plain sight?

“CRAP GITS”

Ok, found one I’m 99% sure isn’t an accident. This is a perfect match with the subject matter.

“SHIT” and “SHITE”

“SHIT MC”

Ok, this is possibly on purpose as running 'story hour in the management classroom' is much like being a shit MC.

“A COCK”

Reckon the authors thought this guy was “a cock”?

“ARSE!”

I'd say this one is probably on purpose.

“GASH”

I'm going to vote that this is an unfortunate acronym rather than on purpose.

“U PENIS”

This is about lung disease I think, no real reason for the initials to be 'u penis', but they might have done it for bored lols.

“CRAP HR”

This really could be someone having a dig "Crap HR"

“CUNTS!”

I feel the same way Myles.

At this point I shared the data on Twitter and asked members of the public to read through the list and see if they could spots ones.

Rob Manuel 🧻 @robmanuel

I've written code that searches through 32 million academic papers for rude words hidden in acronyms in titles - some accidental, some maybe on purpose - what I'd like YOU to do is read through results & pick out any you think are worth highlighting github.com/robmanuel/Sear…

So lets go through some replies and pick out some good ones shall we?

“CRAP”

Tom Munday spotted that “Colo-Recto-Anal Physiology” does rather relate to crap.

“PISS”

Greg Kennedy notice that Piss does seem oddly perfect for “ Pressurized Irrigation System Selection”

“COCK UPS”

Jack Malvern pointed out a siighting of “cock ups, fs [fuck’s sake?]” in Correction of Cervical Kyphosis Using Pedicle Screw Fixation Systems.

Jack also pointed out that “Sexual Hormones in the Pathophysiology of Tourette's Syndrome” acronyming to “shitpots” is likely intentional.

CONCLUSIONS

Anyway. If you want to look for more, you know where the code is, or you could extend it by looking for different words or pointing it at other data sources.

Remember, this is why you learnt to code. Not so you could fix boring business systems, but because it’s a superpower to have fun.