***damn vs. Goddamn

Cafe Society
1

I was watching an episode of Little Britain on BBC Canada last night, and noticed a blatant edit. In the narration, Tom Baker says: “My sweet Lord, hallelujah”. The word “Lord” was completely blanked out. Now, considering that this particular episode featured : rear male nudity, countless homosexuality jokes, an actor playing a teenager sucking on his friend’s grandmother’s toes, much swearing (cock, shit, bitch, etc.), and more, this seems like an odd thing to choose for censorship. Do they really think that anyone watching Little Britain is going to object to the Lord’s name being taken in vain?

I’ve noticed this same phenomenon on other edited for TV programs. They will blank or bleep the word “God” in Goddamn, leaving the “damn” perfectly intact. This seems to be a recent phenomenon (as far as I have noticed). Is this due to the increasingly influential Religious Right in the US (mind you, this was on BBC Canada)? Have you ever been left wondering after something you consider minor has been censored, but something potentially more offensive has been left in?

2

We were watching some Spike TV police chase show recently. The guy being chased performed a tricky move, causing the pursuing officer to crash his car and let out the expletive in question. Now, you could hear everything the cop was saying throughout the chase quite clearly, but they were subtitling everything that was said anyway.

What you read: “***damnit!”
What you heard: “God<beeep>”

Odd combo, that…

3

The whole thing used to be bleeped. Now they just allow the “damn” part through.

4

But why bleep the “Lord” from the sentence “My sweet Lord, hallelujah” except for religious reasons?

5

Why didn’t they just change it to “He’s so fine, Hallelujah!” ? That’s the original version anyway.