[Hitch]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

The quickest way to get a child to stop swearing is to tell them what the words actually mean. Once they know what the words mean, they cease to be bad words and become offensive words. Since very few kids intend to be offensive when swearing, they simple stop using those words. (Yes, I have done this. It works almost every time.)

Or, they simply stopped in front of you. Frankly, the whole thing with "swear words" seems to be grossly overblown to me. The idea of "profanity" is overblown, as it's not like 99.99% of the people cursing are actually doing something PROFANE, if you follow the actual definition of profane, which is: "profane words," or "unholy." I mean, what's god- or religion- or damning-related in the s word for POOP? And since absolutely nobody gives two s**ts about someone who says "POOP," why would they care about the other?

Ditto the infamous F-word. It means SEX. We can hear people say "screw that," left, right and center, and nobody blinks. But, ye gods, drop the eff bomb and hair's afire! If someone ran around saying "Sex you! Sex you! Sex you, you mothersexer!," the worst thing that would happen is that they'd be admitted for a 3-day psych eval. But say the OTHER word, well....I mean, I recall George Carlin's wonderful update on his "7 words..." shtick, on stage, a bit back, right before he died, where he noted that when you're reading closed captions, and they "blank" the word, it's okay to put F--- you!, but not SAY it. So...it's okay to READ it, and THINK it, but not HEAR it? Uh, really? Are our ears more sacred than our BRAINS?

It's such absurdity. It's the whole faux-morality, the idea that "nice people" don't swear. As if you can tell if someone is nice by their language. I've had business dealings with lots of folks who don't swear, that ripped off more people than those that do. Not all; just saying, some. Many, for that matter. Biggest single client ripoff I ever had? A BIBLE. He didn't curse, either, but ripped me off for $900.00. The most profane client I ever had, in my life, paid me the best, and gave me the least trouble.

Now parents don't want to expose their kids to these words for various reasons. Some or those reasons are trivial things that they should be able to deal with, while others are not. Either way though, those books are exposing kids to these words and they are doing so without context. They don't mention what the words mean and when it is inappropriate to use them. Take that darned word damn. For a lot of people it doesn't have a deep meaning, either because it doesn't reflect their belief system or because they realize that the user is just expressing themselves emotionally. Yet if they use that word in a particular manner on a Christian person with a more uptight disposition, then they are bound to elicit a very negative response. The child does not understand that because they rarely know what the word means to certain people. The same can be said for practically any swear word. As such, I can understand why a lot of parents want to shelter their kids from those words.

And that's their choice. But if they want their children to not read "bad words," then they ought to monitor their reading material, not alter someone else's creation.

As for whether this is censorship or not. I don't see what the problem is if a person is using this software for their own gratification or because they believe it will protect their own child. In the latter case it is because the parent is responsible for the upbringing of their child, and are often left dealing with the consequences. Used in a more general context, to censor books for other adults or for other people's children, then yes it is a problem. As others have pointed out, this is probably an issue from the perspective of authors as well -- since changing the words can change the meaning.

It's not censorship if they choose (from an educated standpoint--not the kneejerk idiocy of all those people who ran around with their heads afire about how HP was about "witchcraft," or whatever that brouhaha was way back) not to allow their children to read Holden, or Twain (not due to profanity, per se, but THAT other word), or anyone else. It's copyright infringement if they decide that they're going to alter someone else's words. Worse, they're not even going to READ it, first, and decide if it needs it (anyone else here remember that book, in 6th grade--was it Twain?--that had the bitch and her pups? Will that also be edited out?); they're going to let an APP do it.

It's ridiculous. And for anyone that doesn't remember it, that other program, the one with the same sort of auto-tweaking for movies--that was construed copyright infringement, IIRC, by the courts.

Hitch