I Dumped Apple's Fucking Word List

Apple’s macOS keyboard stores per-app and per-recipient profanity usage in a local SQLite database, `~/Library/Keyboard/VulgarWordUsage.db`, which feeds the iOS 17 and macOS autocorrect system introduced by Craig Federighi at WWDC 2023. The database’s `vword_usage` table tracks app identifier, recipient identifier, word, reading form and usage count, letting the keyboard learn that a user swears in Messages with one friend but not in Mail with a boss; on the author’s Mac the file held zero rows and had not been written since April 2024. Upstream, Apple’s system dictionary assigns every word one of three sensitivity tiers—vulgar, offensive or sensitive—plus up to eleven topic flags such as sex, drugs, religion, politics and violence, all exposed only through private C functions in Lexicon.framework rather than a public API. The author dumped these flags for 15 languages and found quirks including “Oedipus” classed as vulgar, “Tom” and “Mick” as offensive, and “pee,” “poo,” “niggle” and “underling” as sensitive. Notably, “Trump” is the only living politician in the English sensitive tier, alongside Hitler, Mao, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, while Biden, Obama and Putin are unflagged. The findings matter because Apple’s tone and autocorrect behavior rests on an undocumented, privately implemented word list that developers cannot query; watch for whether Apple exposes the flags publicly or expands the database beyond its current per-app, per-recipient scope.