Books without swear words - there's an app for that

[eschwartz]

Yep, and next up is an app that yells at your kids for you. Well, at least that one might be useful -- the kid won't care either way, but at least s/he won't learn any new swear words -- because this app is filtered too.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Yep, and next up is an app that yells at your kids for you. Well, at least that one might be useful -- the kid won't care either way, but at least s/he won't learn any new swear words -- because this app is filtered too.

LOL. I mean, seriously? What TV shows and movies and, oh, yeah, other kids do they think that THEIR kids are seeing/hanging out with? Parents in this day and age seem to have some sort of brain-filter for their OWN thoughts. The "cognitive dissonance parenting" filter, that allows you to think that your Johnny or Suzie isn't "like that." That they won't swear, won't have sex (without your express consent), won't smoke dope, won't drink...jesus wept, has anyone been paying attention to statistics on teen behavior?

Sheesh. They probably "censored" Catcher. Or Twain. Take your bloody pick.

Hitch

[eschwartz]

Yeah, well, what's so cultural about a bunch of slave owners?

[cromag]

With all due respect, if there are no swear words to read what incentive will the kids have to read books in the first place?

[eschwartz]

I have never read a book in order to read swearwords.

I might not be able to muster the mental energy to care one way or another about their presence, but that cuts both ways.

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.)

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.

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.

[QuantumIguana]

[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

[Jessica Lares]

My mother was offered those edited films when she ran a video rental store. I was sitting there in a corner doing nothing at the time and a lady came in and started talking about how this one recent film said "damn" and such and such, and she just went on and on, and my mom just said I'll get back to you on it.

Guess it was fine to use those words in front of a 14/5 year-old.

She worked for Blockbuster for years and years and years. Nobody wanted that stuff. Most parents didn't even pay attention to the M and T games they were renting their kids, and this was before the Grand Theft Auto uproar.

I went to school with people in middle and high school that didn't use bad words, but they were doing other things that were even more inappropriate and heartbreaking.

Just censoring something for bad words does nothing. The content itself matters more.

[dickloraine]

It is quite funny to concentrate on swear words instead of the content. "No problem", he said to his 8 year old, "read this stephen king book, but use the bad language filter!"

I always have to think about the catcher in the rye, when the bully tells him to write his homework but to make some grammar errors. It is sad.

[PeterT]

From http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/bl...g-shakespeare/

Example Bowdlerizations

Some examples of alterations to Shakespeare’s works made by Bowdler include:

• In Hamlet the death of Ophelia was no longer a suicide, but referred to as an accidental drowning.
• In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s famous line of “Out, damned spot!” read instead “Out, crimson spot!“
• In all plays “God!” as an exclamation is replaced with “Heavens!“
• In Henry IV Part 2 Doll Tearsheet (a prostitute) is omitted from the story entirely
• In Romeo & Juliet, Mercutio’s “the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon” becomes was changed to “the hand of the dial is now upon the point of noon”.

[JSWolf]

My parents never censored what I read. I used the library and I bought books. I bought what I liked to read. I didn't go reading books because they had curse words in them, I read because I liked what I was reading. What my parents did for me was to trust me.

Parents who feel the need to have words changed in the books their kids read do not trust them and that's worse than the words the kids might be reading.

[DiapDealer]

The appropriate thing for concerned parents to do would be to have the Clean Hear app implanted directly into their child's brain. That way; books, movies, music, conversation, what have you ... the app intercepts the inappropriate word before it can be perceived by the child, and an apppropriate substitution can be made at that time. Bada bing bada boom.

Even when parents "mess" up and drop a few "m"-bombs of their own, they can take comfort in the knowledge that little Johnny will never have to suffer the shock of hearing his parents (or anyone) curse. Ever. Heck, you could let the merchant marines babysit him with complete peace of mind.

Then of course there's the Clean See add-on module--guaranteed to blur all exposed naughty bits in real-time.

Originally Posted by Hitch

It's not censorship if they choose (...) 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.

That first bit reminds me of a hilarious CBC radio program a few years back. It was all about the "n-word", and they spent an hour discussing it without saying the word once (or maybe they said it exactly once). It was, more or less, an academic discourse on the history and nature of the word, so it was not as though the word was used in a prejudicial way. Context is everything after all, and we should not be afraid to use a word if the context is appropriate and understood by the reader or listener.

Unfortunately, we are also talking about a product aimed at children here. Children have less life experience and are less likely to understand the context. They are also less likely to understand the meaning of the word, and use it inappropriately. That's why people use much more discretion while speaking around children than they do with adults. It isn't necessarily a case that they think that bad words make a bad person.

As for copyright infringement, wouldn't that depend upon how the book is modified. If someone was to modify a book, that is still under copyright, and print copies of that edited book, then it would be copyright infringement. But what if someone used whiteout to remove the word and put a new word in its place. The author may not be pleased with that, but surely it isn't copyright infringement. Software can pretty much do the latter so the question remains, is it copyright infringement? (Again, the author may be offended but they probably don't have a legal leg to stand on.)

[pendragginp]

Wow, this sure brought out a lot of holier-than-thous from the woodwork! I have no problem with other parents raising their children as they see fit, and I'm not going to sit around and act like they're soooo stupid and I'm soooo much smarter and better.

I read to my children all the time, and I expurgated certain words from the books I read them. I'm not going to use the 'n' word about Jim, for instance, when I read them Huck Finn. I AM going to explain the history of this word and why we don't use it.

Same thing with To Kill A Mockingbird when I read it to them. Scout does swear a bit, and since I didn't want them to think I was okay with my children swearing, I just left out some of those words or changed them. Sue me.

There are a lot of books that have a lot of value in them, and it doesn't lie in the fact that they contain profanity. Losing that bit rarely hurts the book, and if cutting it out will make an otherwise valuable book available to children - well, obviously that was the route I chose.

And as for getting all up in the air about 'changing something someone wrote' - what, pray tell, does every adaptation and abridgment do? That's a specious argument; changing books happens all the time. I get far more upset about going to see a movie made from a book and finding that basically all that has been retained is the title and the poor author's name.

Live and let live, folks. Live and let live.