"The ad was found to be in breach of rules on social responsibility and the protection of children. The ASA told The Sun not to use the word "bloody" on posters in future."

That's right; think of the bloody children.

Bloody is a bastardisation of "By My Lady!" an expression of surprise of yesteryear. (In the same way that Blind Me! turned into Blimey!) The Victorians got prudish about the vague blasphemy of the whole thing and By My Lady became Bloody. Hell was tacked on later ( I imagine in the 20's) and stuck because it rolls of the tongue so well.

If we're going to get prudish about bloody - could we revert, please? Somehow it doesn't seem so bad these days.

Ta

Alex

Why is it a swear word?

My wife hates it when I use that word, and we're Canadian.

Is one selfish individual and we lose a source of amusement. I'm surprised that they didn't object on religious grounds as it mentioned the word Hell.

/ the one with the BBQ lighter fluid in the pocket please...

I just don't get it. Seems the most offensive word in English is "Ban" or its derivatives. Ban waste collections, ban supermarket plastic bags, etc...

For Fuc*ks sake, even the word FUCK is possibly an acronym - "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" - but Wikipedia offers more possibilities.

OK, in (partial) acceptance, when at primary school some 45 years ago, our heamaster taught us that "bloody" referred to the blood of the Virgin Mary - maybe hence the drink - but I never saw, or can see the connection. And, as she was stuffed by Gabriel, why the 'Virgin* bit?? She had kids afterwards, so ditto.

FUC*K 'em!!! PC correct wank*ers. Oh, that'll be the IT connection... (the PC bit, I mean) ;-)

would listen to the many, many complaints that ISP's and telco's continue to sell Unlimited * packages.

* unlimited, subject to our fair usage policy. i.e. our FUCKING limit!

..the Tower of London will need to do some re-branding?

http://www.toweroflondontour.com/bloodytw.html

ASA - Are you the FCC in disguise?

ASA Person 1 : We received 1 complaint about the word "bloody"

ASA Person 2 : We know that 1 complaint = 100 billion people.

And there was me thinking 1 person couldn't make a difference...

I fell off the podium and hurt myself and I have a bloody knee.

The ASA do have a use, but sometimes, they're idiots. Rather than have a swipe at mild swearwords, I'd prefer them to have a go at real lies in adverts, such as my train company touting it's new timetable as "improvements" when it's cutting services by 50%

Bloody strewth mate, them pommies have been told not to use bloody on ads, I hope it don't catch on here...

those bloody twatdangles at the bloody ASA are a bit bloody full of themselves.

Bloody oath.

(Fuck) - teehee!

Perhaps El Reg readers can help me out. Why is the word 'bloody' in any way offensive?

I guess it's to do with god-botherers, is it either menstruation or the Eucharist?

they want to describe something that is covered in blood?

Bloody idiots!

Quite frankly, I was disgusted at the linked page on the ASAs website. The word "bl**dy" was visible on at least 5 occasions! How dare they offend my eyes!

Bloody inconsiderate tossers.

Oh shut up!

I object to their use of censorship. Can they be banned please?

ffs...

Said by Ron Weasley to Prof. McGonagle in the first Harry Potter movie (Not in the book, interestingly enough).

Ooh, ooh, then he told Harry to "piss off" in The Goblet Of Fire movie (again, not in the book).

Mine's the invisibility jacket.

Never mind offensive, it's blasphemous! Where's Mary Whitehouse when you need her? Oh yeah, she's dead innit.

I thought Ron Weasly said "Bloody hell" all the time in those books..?

Doesn't that mean that UK kids have seen/heard that word many times?

Is, IMHO an expression of mild surprise. But then, there are really no 'bad' words, it all depends on context. How can a word be deemed to be offensive,when it is the meaning conveyed by the word that has the potential to cause offence, and not the word itself? For instance, I find the use of any word to advertise the Sun 'newspaper' grossly offensive...

The ASA are really showing their stupidity this week aren't they - had someone threatened to strip them of the little power they have?

How can one person's complaint ban the use of such a mild word (and, given the context, it was clearly meant as a humorous take on the Aussies' prolific use of the word). Did her child even see it? Poor child, so wrapped up in cotton wool one day they're going to get a real shock when they realise the world isn't made of candy sticks and lollipops.

Oh fucking hell, all the comments on here are going to be bloody hilarious.

Cocks and twat.

seems like we do live in fucking christian Iran after all.

frankly this country is a mess, tories and labour are the same party, with the same megalomaniac ideas and aims, lib dems are a bunch of enviro loonies and media darlings.

Kids hear worse EVERYDAY, I hear parents yelling "reebok/chardonnay/shannon, get your fucking arse over here before I batter pure fuck out of you!" (and yes some muppet did call their kid reebok :-| )

Ive even heard young pre school kids yelling fuck you and other obscenities to adults, so I think the use of Bloody in a satirical context is a NON ISSUE, then again keep the population focused on one hand while you fuck them with the otheer

I'm bloody well offended by the ASA's politically correct dong-cockery. May their genitals welt with a thousand blisters.

IT angle? Well I suppose a computer was involved somewhere in the design of the offending ad...

child safety - every prudes stick to beat the rest of us over the head with. The concept of "childhood" wasn't even invented until Victorian times - how appropriate the it's being used to invoke victorian morality

Ban please?

why don't you just go live there if you love it so much

fucking ASA arseholes

that is all

forehead from beating my bloody head of the bloody desk and the bloody wall in frustration at the exponential bloody rise in over zealous bloody censorship from all bloody quarters.

Enough with the bloody nagging, nanny bloody state mentality.

I'm bloody furious.

I remember as a kid being told not to say bloody, but we had a cure rhyme to deal with it!

Bloodys in the bible, bloodys in the book, if you don't believe me, have a bloody look.

Obviously this was before kids went around carrying AK47's and machetes and stuff. Wheres the IT angle though? Unless you suggest we start to read the Sun for unbaised technological opinion?

Which is the extremely offensive phrase that the word is derived from.