Incensed Miss Wither's father Alan, 64, retaliated by describing her own a** she doesn't know whether to speak or f**t.
(The Mail on Sunday, p.3, July 3, 2011)
I wonder what writing technique is a** and f**t. I suppose I can guess the meaning of this or that word from the context. However, it is not clear what language phenomenon this is, whether it has been defined in linguistics or not. Or can it, in the least ,be considered a nonce word ? Any thoughts?
It means a letter. It is subsituted in some common 'bad' words so the word can be used but not literally be spelled out. In your case, the words seem to be "ass" and "fart" but the context of the first word is odd.
The general concept is called expurgation, bowdlerization, or self-censorship (if done by the writer). You see this most often in newspapers when they use a quote that contains words deemed offensive by the editor.
Asterisks (*) are more formally used immediately after a word or phrase to indicate a footnote is present to expand on the word or phrase.
But when used in the form of your examples, it becomes what is called a grawlix ... that's a term made up by American cartoonist Mort Walker. But in cartoons, symbols other than the asterisk are often used. For example: So I said to the rude attendant "Go $%#@ yourself."
This is not an example of a nonce word. But there's a whole thread about nonce words on this forum. See: https://waywordradio.org/discussion/topics/nonce-words/
Be aware that substituting the asterisk for letters can have other meanings.
In data searches, * is often used as a "wildcard" character that matches anything, so that b*rn will match any of the words barn, born and burn. In certain circles, a single star matches any number of characters, so you'll sometimes see references to a *nix operating system, which includes both Unix and Linux (and maybe some others I'm not aware of).
Then too, it can be used to mask certain words that are troublesome for reasons other than obscenity. Many posters on Usenet know that there are people out there who periodically search for the mere mention of a controversial topic and can take over a thread or an entire group merely because they felt compelled to respond when the hot-button word appears in any context. That's why you'll sometimes see things like ab*rt**n or Sc**nt*l*gy, to avoid triggering the auto-searches that would call unwanted attention to the group.
A related technique is where the name of the supreme being is masked, usually with hyphens rather than asterisks, because of a religious prohibition on using that name. Strictly speaking, this prohibition refers only to a certain name in a certain language, but some people prefer to err on the side of caution and write G-d in English (it's my position that this isn't really the supreme being's name at all, but rather His job title).
Thank you all. You greatly helped me to understand the use of asterisks in the previously mentioned words and the like.