What’s common to devil, breasts, period and gay?

These are some of the 'obscene' words the Pak Telecom Authority has asked mobile companies to ban from SMSes

What's common to devil, breasts, period and gay?

These are some of the 'obscene' words the Pak Telecom Authority has asked mobile companies to ban from SMSes

Pakistan's telecommunications agency has issued a list of words that it considers obscene or offensive, telling mobile phone companies to block text messages that contain them. The Pakistan Tele-communication Authority (PTA) deemed 586 Urdu words and 1,109 English words offensive or pornographic, according to reports in local media.

Some are expletives or sexual words while others are medical terms, but some entries have left many scratching their heads. Included in the list are words such as intercourse, condom and breast, as well as seemingly ordinary words like period, hostage and flatulence. Among the more bizarre are monkey crotch, wuutang and Jesus Christ.

The PTA instructed mobile phone companies to begin screening text messages by November 21. According to the letter, the PTA says blocking the texts is meant to control spamming, which it defines as "the transmission of harmful, fraudulent, misleading, illegal or unsolicited messages in bulk to any person without express permission of the recipient."

Mobile phone companies Telenor Pakistan and Ufone confirmed that they had received the memo and the 'dictionary.' A spokesman for the PTA, meanwhile said that the move was in response to complaints from customers who said they were receiving offensive text messages.

"Nobody would like thisu00a0happening to their young boy or girl," Mohammad Younis said. Pakistanis have been reacting to the news on Twitter, sometimes wondering what the words and expressions mean.

Offensive?
Medical terms banned:
*u00a0Athletes foot
*u00a0Breast
*u00a0Condom
*u00a0Flatulence
*u00a0Intercourse
*u00a0Period
*u00a0Premature
*u00a0Tongue
*u00a0Herpes

Daily words banned:
* Deeper
* Fairy
* Fingerfood
* Hole
* Hostage
* Harder

Religious terms banned:
* Devil
* Jesus Christ

LGBT terms banned:
* Gay
* Homosexual
* Queer

586 The number of Urdu words that the PTA has banned

1,109 The number of English words the PTA has deemed offensive

"Exciting news! Mid-day is now on WhatsApp Channels