Anexpurgation of a work, also known as abowdlerization orfig-leafing, is a form ofcensorship that involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive from an artistic work or other type of writing or media.[1][2][3][4]
The termbowdlerization is often used in the context of the expurgation oflewd material from books.[5] The term derives fromThomas Bowdler's 1818 edition ofWilliam Shakespeare's plays, which he reworked in ways that he felt were more suitable for women and children.[6] He similarly editedEdward Gibbon'sDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire.[7] A less common term used in this context, also based on common editorial practice, isAd usum Delphini, referring to a series of consciously censored classical works.[8][9]
Another term used in related discourse is censorship by so-calledpolitical correctness.[10] When this practice is adopted voluntarily, by publishers of new editions or translators, it is seen as a form ofself-censorship.[3][11] Texts subject to expurgation arederivative works, sometimes subject to renewed copyright protection.[12]
Due to its mockery of the ancestors of the modernBritish royal family,[16] graphic descriptions of sex acts, and the symptoms ofvenereal disease,[17] the 1751Scottish Gaelic poetry bookAis-eridh na Sean Chánoin Albannaich ("The Resurrection of the Old Scottish Language") byAlasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair,national poet of Scotland, continued to be republished only in heavily bowdlerized editions by puritanical censors throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.[18] The first uncensored text was published only in 2020.[19]
"The Crabfish" (known also as "The Sea Crabb"), an English folk song dating back to the mid-1800s about a man who places a crab into achamber pot, unbeknownst to his wife, who later uses the pot without looking, and is attacked by the crab.[20] Over the years, sanitized versions of the song were released in which a lobster or crab grabs the wife by the nose[21] instead of by the genitals,[20] and others in which each potentially offensive word is replaced with an inoffensive word that does not fit the rhyme scheme, thus implying that there is a correct word that does rhyme. For instance, "Children, children, bring the looking glass / Come and see the crayfish that bit your mother's a-face" (arse).[22]
ABoston-area ban onUpton Sinclair's novelOil! – owing to a short motel sex scene – prompted the author to assemble a 150-copyfig-leaf edition with the nine offending pages blacked out as a publicity stunt.[24][25]
In 1938, a jazz song "Flat Foot Floogie (with a Floy Floy)" peaked at number two on US charts. The original lyrics were sung with the word "floozie", meaning a sexually promiscuous woman, or a prostitute, but record companyVocalion objected. Hence the word was substituted with the almost similar sounding title word "floogie" in the second recording. The "floy floy" in the title was a slang term for a venereal disease, but that was not widely known at the time. In the lyrics it is sung repeatedly "floy-doy", which was widely thought as a nonsense refrain. Since the lyrics were regarded as nonsense the song failed to catch the attention of censors.
In 1920, an American publisher bowdlerized the George Ergerton translation ofKnut Hamsun'sHunger.[26]
Several music artists have changed song titles to appease radio stations. For example, an expurgated remix of Snoop Dogg's song "Wet" was released under the title "Sweat" andRihanna's song "S&M" had to be changed to "C'mon" in the UK.[27]
Recent editions of many works—includingMark Twain'sHuckleberry Finn[28] andJoseph Conrad'sNigger of theNarcissus—have found various replacements ("slave", "Indian", "soldier boy", "N-word", "children") for the wordnigger. An example of bowdlerization can be plainly seen inHuckleberry Finn, in which Twain used racial slurs in natural speech to highlight what he saw as racism and prejudice endemic to theAntebellum South.[29][30]
Agatha Christie's 1939 bookTen Little Niggers was titledAnd Then There Were None for the US market in 1940, with some paperback editions calling itTen Little Indians. UK editions continued to use the original title into the 1980s, and French editions were calledDix Petits Nègres until 2020.[31]
The American version of the counting rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", which was changed by some to add the word "nigger",[32] is now sung with a different word, such as "tiger".
The Hardy Boys children's mystery novels (published starting in 1927) contained heavy doses of racism. They were extensively revised starting in 1959 in response to parents' complaints about racial stereotypes in the books.[33] For further information, seeThe Hardy Boys#1959–1979.
The Story of Doctor Dolittle and relevant works have been reedited to remove controversial references to and plots related to non-white characters (in particular, African ones).[34][35]
Many Internet message boards and forums use automaticwordfiltering to block offensive words and phrases from being published or automatically amend them to more innocuous substitutes such asasterisks or nonsense. This often catches innocent words, in a scenario referred to as theScunthorpe problem: words such as 'assassinate' and 'classic' may become 'buttbuttinate' or 'clbuttic'. Users frequently self-bowdlerize their own writing by using slight misspellings,minced oaths or variants, such as 'flek', 'fcuk' or 'pron'.[36][37]
In a similar vein, content creators feel that the algorithms that spread their content or make it fit for revenue may turn against them, if certain topics are mentioned, prompting them to come up with euphemisms that may sound childish at times (a gynaecologist talking aboutlady bits to avoidvagina mistakenly prompting the algorithm to think the matter is too obscene to be worth broadcasting) or bizarre (a video-essay on a murder may reference the act asun-aliving)
The 2010 song"Fuck You" byCeeLo Green, which made the top-10 in thirteen countries, was broadcast as "Forget You", with a matching music video, where the changed lyrics cannot be lip-read, as insisted on by the record company.[38]
The 2021 song "ABCDEFU" byGayle was also bowdlerized for radio, with the new lyrics reading: 'A, B, C, D, E, forget you', in a similar fashion toFuck You.[39]
A student edition of the 1953 novelFahrenheit 451 wasexpurgated to remove a variety of content. This was ironic given the subject matter of the novel involvesburning books. This continued for a dozen years before it was brought to authorRay Bradbury's attention and he convinced the publisher to reinstate the material.[40][41][42][43]
The 2017 video gameSouth Park: The Fractured but Whole was originally going to have the nameThe Butthole of Time. However, marketers would not promote anything with a vulgarity in its title, so "butthole" was replaced with thehomophone "but whole".[44][45]
In 2023 new versions ofRoald Dahl's books were published byPuffin Books to remove language deemed inappropriate. Puffin had hiredsensitivity readers to go over his texts to make sure the books could "continue to be enjoyed by all today".[46] The same was done with theJames Bond novels.[47]
^Crider, Bill (Fall 1980). Lee, Billy C.; Laughlin, Charlotte (eds.)."Reprints/Reprints:Ray Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451".Paperback Quarterly.III (3): 25.ISBN9781434406330.Archived from the original on 4 May 2021. Retrieved11 November 2020.The censorship began with a special 'Bal-Hi' edition in 1967, an edition designed for high school students...
^Karolides, Nicholas J.; Bald, Margaret; Sova, Dawn B. (2011).120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Second ed.). Checkmark Books. p. 488.ISBN978-0-8160-8232-2.In 1967, Ballantine Books published a special edition of the novel to be sold in high schools. Over 75 passages were modified to eliminate such words ashell,damn, andabortion, and two incidents were eliminated. The original first incident described a drunk man who was changed to a sick man in the expurgated edition. In the second incident, reference is made to cleaningfluff out of the humannavel, but the expurgated edition changed the reference to cleaning ears.
^Karolides, Nicholas J.; Bald, Margaret; Sova, Dawn B. (2011).120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Second ed.). Checkmark Books. p. 488.ISBN978-0-8160-8232-2.After six years of simultaneous editions, the publisher ceased publication of the adult version, leaving only the expurgated version for sale from 1973 through 1979, during which neither Bradbury nor anyone else suspected the truth.
