Grawlix



Grawlix or obscenicon is the use of typographical symbol to replace profanity. Mainly used in cartoons and comics, it is used to get around language restrictions or censorship in publishing. At signs (@), dollar signs ($), number signs (#), ampersands (&), percent signs (%), and asterisks (*) are oft-used symbols. The characters may resemble the letters they replace, such as "$" standing in for "S".

History
The first known grawlix appeared in November 1, 1901 story of Gene Carr's comic strip Lady Bountiful, with the title "Lady Bountiful is Shocked", and continued to expand its usage throughout 1902 and 1903. In December 12, 1902, The Katzenjammer Kids became the second comic to adapt grawlixes, among many other comic trends seen today.

In 1964, American cartoonist Mort Walker popularized the term "grawlix" in his article Let's Get Down to Grawlixes, which he expanded upon in his book The Lexicon of Comicana.

The emoji represents a face with grawlixes over the mouth. It was proposed in 2016 and accepted into Unicode 10.0 in 2017.

In November 2022, Merriam-Webster and Hasbro added the word to the seventh edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, citing familiarity among younger players.

Etymology
A Merriam-Webster blog post suggests the word grawlix may have originated from the word growl, which is a sound a person makes when they are angry.

Example

 * "Come this fall, CBS will debut a 7:30 p.m. sitcom starring 79-year-old William Shatner. The title is $#*! My Dad Says. The opening profanity symbols (called grawlixes) will be pronounced "bleep," but we all know what it stands for." — Michael Storey, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 20, 2010