Taboo word avoidance: a fine case

A story in the Minneapolis "Star Tribune" displays some fine obscenity-avoidance on the part of the reporter (or possibly editor). The story is about a man who got between a guy and the woman he was hitting and who got soundly beaten for his trouble.

"I just simply say, 'Dude, that's enough,' [thinking] maybe he'll back off," Skripka said. "He got in my face. I didn't flinch. I said, 'Dude, back off,' pardon my French but that's the words I used. Then I finally said, 'Dude, what's your problem?' The next thing I know is I'm waking up on a gurney. I was knocked out cold."

Seriously?

"Dude, back off" requires "pardon my French"? That's a phrase generally reserved for hard-core profanity or obscenity. "Dude, back off" is a bit slangy, perhaps, but I can't picture a guy thinking he needed to apologize for saying it, especially since it's clearly not the word "dude" he's apologizing for using; it's "back off".

Somehow I don't think "that's the words [he] used."

What makes this so deeply weird is that "Dude, back off" is a well-formed and appropriate phrase for him to have used. There's no hint of expurgation. It's not "Dude, --- off" or "Dude [back] off": it looks like "back off" is what he said. But then we get that reflexive apology, because he knows that what you say to an aggressor who's threatening you is probably not appropriate for a newspaper. It's really odd.

source

UPDATED: Over at Language Log a commenter says:

The newspaper quote matches supplied footage of the press conference. In the press conference video, at 0:40 he says, I said, 'Dude, back off,' pardon my French but that's the words I used.' Then there's a flash cut on the video, and then he's saying "I just don't know why he …"

If they edited the quote for the newspaper, then they edited the video sequence perfectly to eliminate any trace as well.

That is just ... wow. I can't imagine saying "Pardon my French" for "Dude, back off". That's Minnesota nice taken to the extreme.