Ooh, Santa!

Does Microsoft know what caused Santa to become naughty? Did someone hack the program?

Microsoft hasn't pointed any fingers at employees, at least not publicly. They have a number of bots who are supposed to respond with cheeky remarks to be fun and playful.

However, these bots have the ability to repeat things back to you... when I was in High School there was a bot called "Smarterchild" that my friends and I would try to get to say inappropriate things back to us (we were very mature, haha). A lot of the time we could get the bot to repeat what we were saying.

This is what Microsoft believes happened... They said that they didn't know that the bot was programmed with such lewd language, but that they didn't suspect an employee prank. They believe that Santa wouldn't have said such things if he wasn't pushed to "do things that he wasn't supposed to".

The santa program is probably a upgraded type of the Eliza program, which if you ever played around with, it would keep track of many of the statements you said earlier and after bantering about a current topic, may try and pull you back to a previous topic. I could easily see one of a few things happinging. 1: the uncle was making lewd statements to Santa before the kid was put on or 2: the program was not keeping track of discussions properly and used a statement from some other chat session or 3: santa kept a db of responses that he built up from other kids chats. I see 1 as most likely. though 4: MS employee snuck it in and MS is covering their butt is also highly likely (darn those crafty programmers).

This is probably the most irresponsible action I have taken to date, but I need to know so I am going to ask: Do Australian grown-ups realize that Santa is not real? Santa is a myth. Since the myth is perpetuated by parents to their children, it is impossible to be offensive, unless the parents include the offensive meanings in their tales.

I did not mention to either of my children that the Santa laugh also sounds like a slang term for a prostitute, and by the time I grew up and realized the coincidence I no longer believed in Santa, so it did not matter, because I could handle it.

By fearing the word in it's proper context one ligitimizes the slang use. Some Australians may need to grow up and show some maturity and face the perceived threat head on.

Ironic that Australians assumed they would be safe once they dis-armed their citizens, now they fear words- history has shown us what is in their future.

How about everybody growing up and acting like responsible adults. Or are we just a nation of childish, narcissistic children.

Yep. It's a distinct possibility. <Cough>.

Hi Sharkles... "Specifically, a "ho" is a slang term for a prostitute."... I didn't know that... Is this has a similar meaning in USA also???... Is this a slang term only in Australia???... Anyway, the "ho, ho, ho" is the characteristic laugh of the Santa... They must not take it from him... It's like to take out the beard or the red coat... And I suppose that children don't know the specific slang term...

(BTW, in Greece we have "Saint Basil" instead of "Santa Claus"... We call him "Agios Vasilis"... In Greek "agios" means "saint" and "Vasilis" means "Basil"... )

Merry Christmas to all of you... ...

Finally, a voice of reason. We 'adults' really have lost what ever marbles we were born with, haven't we?

Happy whatever holiday you celebrate for the winter solstice (or summer down below) and a happy & safe New Year!

You deserve a point for that!

"Santa's chatting days ended after he made some racy statements to a couple of kids in the U.K. After being invited to eat pizza, Santa responded by saying "You want me to eat what?!?"

Perhaps Santa was just responding this way because he was offered Pizza instead of the customary milk and cookies.

The though of telling my children or as in my case Grand children that Santa says Ha Ha Ha, is just ludicrous. I will continue the story as it was passed to me by my Grandfather and father thank you very much.

Merry Christmas To All And To All A Good Night!!!! HO!!!! HO!!!! HO!!!!

And what about the Santa that unceremoniously told Ralphie he'd put his eye out?

Hooooooooo - - - - - Hooooooooo - - - - - - Hoooooooo.

Maybe Santa is sending out the wrong messages by using ho (if you're thinking about the slang). A colleague of mine sent me this link... check it out.

Hopefully 2008 will bring him better luck!

I don't know if you've ever seen this, but there is a clay-mation out there, called "I Never Ho'd for My Father." It documents Santa's behavior during the off season.

It is one sick and twisted piece of film! Used to make the rounds with Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Film Festival. A rare treat not to be missed!

Political correctness gone mad...
What am I to use to remove weeds from my strawberry patch if I can't use a hoe!??

This is madness where ill educated misogynist cocky young gits can bastardise our language .
There are sufficient words for prostitute and whore without us joining in the obnoxious rap culture of idiot street slang...innit bro' ?

Women should be standing up in outrage at the casual use of words like bitch and hoe ... instead of railing against legitimate language.

Some of these kids need a good clip round the ear and dragging in front of their Mum...they wouldn't talk like that at home...

Except some of 'em now have guns and knives and no decent male role models.

Macho crap is rammed down kids throats as something to aspire to.

Calm calm...rant over.

Del

You think this is bad, just hear what he had to deal with 15 years ago:

http://www.kraftmstr.com/christmas/humor/pcsanta.html

Reindeer are the only species known where both males and females have antlers. In the winter, male reindeer shed their antlers, while females retain theirs. So not only was Rudolph a girl, but so were alee the other reindeer that pulled the sled!

Still very true today as well. The only thing I would update to the poem would be something from those PETA folks. However, I think that I belong to the other PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals

Yes, Doug Dinsdale did nail my head to the floor, but after all I did deserve it. He was a fair fellow. I mean it was fair!

Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug. He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.

You just won yourself a point!