I have a couple of friends who work for the government and it was long rumoured that their email firewalls would reject any emails which contained certain words. Mainly profanities and anything flagging an email as pornographic, but also, particularly when the last government was in power, anything that might indicate some sort of dissent or government-bashing. So of course several of us used to try and come up with emails that would push the boundaries in an effort to try and get them rejected.

Never happened. Never got rejected. In fact the only thing that got rejected was my daily email with the Calvin and Hobbes comic attached, and even that only got rejected once every six months or so.

Until this morning. I�m taking a bunch of friends down to the beach house for the weekend, so this morning I sent out a nicely composed email setting out the plans and a list of what to bring, what not to bring etc. It included the word �fucking�. Now I�m not a big swearer in life or email, more an average swearer. And in this case the phrase �Things that are optional� Beach towels (if you're insane because the water will be fucking freezing)� seemed perfectly appropriate.

The email went out to 8 people. It got rejected by 2 on the basis of, as the notice I got from Pat�s mail guard screamed, OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE. Pat�s email guard sent me the rejection and said my email had been quarantined and would be deleted from the quarantine store in 7 days. What happens in the 7 days � do I have a right of appeal in order to free my email? And, I might add, Pat doesn�t even work for the government.

Smurfette�s email guard also rejected my mail, though it didn�t tell me about it, it only told her and she then passed it on to me.

Okay. I�ll just edit it to read �#%*$ freezing� and re-send. A minute later I get another message from Pat�s guard saying that again my email has been rejected on the basis of OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE.

Hmmm. I now sit and work my way through the email to see what else could be regarded as offensive. The only thing I can see as being even vaguely rejection worthy is �exotic�. As in exotic birds, as in guinea fowl or goose or some equivalent that Betty and Nathan are thinking about roasting over the weekend. Deleted exotic, re-sent it to Pat and it went through, no problem at all.

Ladies and gentlemen, our new deletable profanity: Exotic.

We are all now, of course, planning emails listing words and phrases in an effort to see exactly where Pat�s email guard draws the OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE line in the sand. Somewhere between �exotic� and �golf clubs� apparently.