Word: bowdlerizing
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...Bowdler" intelligent enough to attend a performance of Hamlet should realize that "Polack" is simply the Polish word for "Pole" and not the ethnic slur the Polack joke craze has made...
There is, of course, something grimily banal and automatic about many of the racial stereotypes that salt the language. Yet sometimes they add a bit of savor. Are "French leave" and "Indian giver" to be expurgated? And what Bowdler at a performance of Hamlet will rise in protest when Horatio says, "He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice"? Should that be "Polish persons...
...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, by Noel Perrin. Examining the literary atrocities of squeamish expurgators, the author has created a brilliant little work of cultural history full of wit and learning...
...BOWDLER'S LEGACY: A HISTORY OF EXPURGATED BOOKS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA, by Noel Perrin. Examining the literary atrocities of squeamish expurgators, the author has created a brilliant little work of cultural history full of wit and learning...
Licensed Hands. Delicacy, Perrin suggests, became an overrated virtue in the 19th century. No response rated higher than "being easily shocked." One proved one's sensitivity by one's blushes, as Dr. Bowdler indicated, and, if necessary, by fainting. It was clearly feminine behavior, and Perrin dares to hint that behind every successful bowdlerizer there is a woman. Perrin's real scoop, however, is the suggestion that the real Bowdler probably was not Thomas at all, nor his wife, but his sister Henrietta Maria, known as Harriet...