Periodic Table Of Swearing Would Even Make A Sailor Blush

periodic-table-of-swearing

If you often find yourself at a loss for words in the heat of an argument, perhaps this Periodic Table of Swearing is something you might be interested in. Built as a marketing tool for the British comic “Modern Toss”, the table features over 100 fruit machine (slot machine) buttons, each of which triggers an audio clip of the cheeky word or phrase listed.

The buttons were mounted on a piece of laser-cut MDF which makes up the table’s surface, while all of the wiring and the guts of the machine are neatly tucked away underneath. Clay, the company that actually built the table, doesn’t elaborate a whole heck of a lot on the details other than stating that it includes over 100 meters of wiring, 300 solder joints, and a whole lot of swearing. We imagine it could likely be replicated with a small micro, an SD card reader, and a couple of speakers – for anyone interested in having one of their own.

While it’s not a hack in the strictest sense, we’re sure it’s a great conversation starter ender, and we did get a chuckle out of the demo video below (Warning: Language).

[Thanks, Jack]

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/28411435 w=470]

29 thoughts on “Periodic Table Of Swearing Would Even Make A Sailor Blush

    1. Monetarily cheaper, maybe. Chopping up a cheap membrane keyboard, or worse one of the older types that’s actually built to last more than a few months, into individual keys and actuators? I’ll leave that to someone who just doesn’t care how much of his life he’s wasting.

      1. Or you could learn the PS/2 protocol and use it as-is (maybe with some relabeling). The only issue is that you’re stuck with the keyboard layout unless you’re willing to waste a lot of time reconnecting things. There’s even an article here about interfacing with one, though I CBA to look it up. It also gives the benefit of far fewer wires to deal with.

      2. Yeah. A much better way would be to stand naked in a public place and have passer-by select your nipple, moles or random warts as inputs and simply memorise the relevant swear-word, shouting it out loud as they press. Good fun and very economical too.

  1. Now THIS is one worthwhile project! An Arduino with a Wave Shield, an SD card with 100 or so short sound files and you’re in business! There’s so much room on the card that you could give the user choice of speaker gender and attitude for each button. I love it! Imagine it, an Arduino with a sense of humor. . .

  2. In its current form I find it somewhat useless. A periodic table lists elements in their most basic form (definition of the word element!).

    This takes the swear word and puts it in a phrase. I think it would be better thought out if the main table were to be made up of single words, and then use the lanthanide and actinide series as the fillers for the rest of the phrase.

    1. I’d guess Bfh, though I’d probably use Mfm.

      BTW: This would work better as a website, then you can send them a link to a particular word to someone and tell them to turn the volume up.

  3. Surely a periodic table of single swear words can be made which then can be combined to form … mole-cul’s (mole asses).

    With periodic groups an everything. The period of the excrements, blasphemy, mental decease, physical decease (only the dutch use these), body parts, and so on.

    I bet we could wring a theory out of that one !.

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