# Huck Finn publisher removes some offensive language - Thoughts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 5, 2011, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441 "2011-01-05T01:45:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/61 "2011-01-05T17:11:47Z")
Because reading aloud is not the problem. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/62 "2011-01-05T17:14:31Z")
I re-read Huckleberry Finn last week with the idea of seeing for myself how the message would be impacted by dropping the word “nigger”; it seemed to me that the move to drop the word is more indicative of poor teaching than anything else. As others seem to be saying, the force of the book is lost if we censor the book to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Teaching of this novel should emphasize the historical aspect; failure to do so is simply more poor teaching and catering to the proponents of censoring the book is catering to people who have most like been poorly taught. In this day and age, that is probably the consequence of PC school administrators and/or race-baiting publicity hounds. Censorship sucks and should be fought with all our vigor. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/63 "2011-01-05T17:23:56Z")
I’ve merged **AClockworkMelon** ’s thread into the Cafe Society thread, which started Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/64 "2011-01-05T17:26:22Z")
I think that it actually would be a pretty awkward book to try to read aloud in a high school classroom, and probably shouldn’t be done. I also think a discussion of that word, along with Twain’s intentions and historical context, should be had before the book is even cracked. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/65 "2011-01-05T17:32:40Z")
Can we also take all that nasty antisemitism out of Chaucer and Chretien de Troyes and _The Merchant of Venice?_ ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/66 "2011-01-05T17:36:53Z")
And then there’s all that Muslim-hate in _The Song of Roland_ – and it’s so **ignorant!** “Their idol Termagant,” indeed! And Moors weren’t even **involved** in the Battle of Roncevalles! Yes, that one needs cleaning up! ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/67 "2011-01-05T18:03:16Z")
I think a big part of the problem is that Mark Twain is widely (and wrongly) viewed as a kiddie author. And when schools assign it to younger kids, teachers and parents alike are reminded that “Huckleberry Finn” is not a cute little story of innocent boys frolicking on a raft. It’s a tough story, filled with hard characters and hard language. Bottom line: teachers have to make a judgment call. Are the kids in their classes old enough and intelligent enough to understand the subject matter and the issues Twain was writing about, and why he used the words he did? If so, the kids should read EXACTLY what Twain wrote. If not, then wait a few years, and introduce the book later. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/68 "2011-01-05T18:04:41Z")
I’m not sure I’d be on board with anything like **Alan Smithee** ’s plan of strategically knuckling-under, but I do think it’s a shame that the rest of Twain’s deeply cynical tale won’t be read because of one word. I’m not sure that one word is the most powerful and revealing thing that happens in the book. But there’s this to say for it: there probably is some amount of knee-jerk thoughtless censorship involved in the controversy. More than that, though, the word does have a well-documented sting to it, which is a stark testament to the power a single word can have. The very impulse to censor the word teaches something very important about the way language can be used to abuse, degrade, rationalize and divide. The controversy itself makes the inclusion of the word important. Censoring a word really only works out if you can make people forget what has been overwritten. Lot of luck there, pal. Arguably, the word has even more power when we know it’s lying there _sous rature_, albeit a subtler power. How about this, for having it both ways – don’t replace the word, just mark it out in black lines as though it was a redacted document, or with the same symbols we use to replace swear words: > [@](#): > > “Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free @#%! there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that @#%! vote, I drawed out. I says I’ll never vote agin. Them’s the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me–I’ll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that @#%!--why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this @#%! put up at auction and sold?–that’s what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn’t be sold till he’d been in the State six months, and he hadn’t been there that long yet. There, now–that’s a specimen. They call that a govment that can’t sell a free @#%! till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free @#%!, and–” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/69 "2011-01-05T18:11:40Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Bottom line: teachers have to make a judgment call. Are the kids in their classes old enough and intelligent enough to understand the subject matter and the issues Twain was writing about, and why he used the words he did? If so, the kids should read EXACTLY what Twain wrote. If not, then wait a few years, and introduce the book later. I think in most cases, it’s school districts making the call and not individual teachers. > [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > How about this, for having it both ways – don’t replace the word, just mark it out in black lines as though it was a redacted document, or with the same symbols we use to replace swear words: That’s just embarrassing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/70 "2011-01-05T18:14:29Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I think a big part of the problem is that Mark Twain is widely (and wrongly) viewed as a kiddie author. And when schools assign it to younger kids, teachers and parents alike are reminded that “Huckleberry Finn” is not a cute little story of innocent boys frolicking on a raft. It’s a tough story, filled with hard characters and hard language. I dunno if the distinction was so clear in those days, but _Tom Sawyer_ seems to have been aimed at younger audience. OTOH, [George Orwell](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011h.html#part18) expressed doubt that Twain ever did write a really **adult** book, as it were. > [@](#): > > Mark Twain has sometimes been compared with his contemporary, Anatole France. This comparison is not so pointless as it may sound. Both men were the spiritual children of Voltaire, both had an ironical, sceptical view of life, and a native pessimism overlaid by gaiety; both knew that the existing social order is a swindle and its cherished beliefs mostly delusions. Both were bigoted atheists and convinced (in Mark Twain’s case this was Darwin’s doing) of the unbearable cruelty of the universe. But there the resemblance ends. Not only is the Frenchman enormously more learned, more civilized, more alive aesthetically, but he is also more courageous. He does attack the things he disbelieves in; he does not, like Mark Twain, always take refuge behind the amiable mask of the ‘public figure’ and the licensed jester. He is ready to risk the anger of the Church and to take the unpopular side in a controversy–in the Dreyfus case, for example. Mark Twain, except perhaps in one short essay ‘What is Man?’, never attacks established beliefs in a way that is likely to get him into trouble. Nor could he ever wean himself from the notion, which is perhaps especially an American notion, that success and virtue are the same thing. > > In LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI there is a queer little illustration of the central weakness of Mark Twain’s character. In the earlier part of this mainly autobiographical book the dates have been altered. Mark Twain describes his adventures as a Mississippi pilot as though he had been a boy of about seventeen at the time, whereas in fact he was a young man of nearly thirty. There is a reason for this. The same part of the book describes his exploits in the Civil War, which were distinctly inglorious. Moreover, Mark Twain started by fighting, if he can be said to have fought, on the Southern side, and then changed his allegiance before the war was over. This kind of behaviour is more excusable in a boy than in a man, whence the adjustment of the dates. It is also clear enough, however, that he changed sides because he saw that the North was going to win; and this tendency to side with the stronger whenever possible, to believe that might must be right, is apparent throughout his career. In ROUGHING IT there is an interesting account of a bandit named Slade, who, among countless other outrages, had committed twenty-eight murders. It is perfectly clear that Mark Twain admires this disgusting scoundrel. Slade was successful; therefore he was admirable. This outlook, no less common today, is summed up in the significant American expression ‘to MAKE GOOD’. > > In the money-grubbing period that followed the Civil War it was hard for anyone of Mark Twain’s temperament to refuse to be a success. The old, simple, stump-whittling, tobacco-chewing democracy which Abraham Lincoln typified was perishing: it was now the age of cheap immigrant labour and the growth of Big Business. Mark Twain mildly satirized his contemporaries in The GILDED AGE, but he also gave himself up to the prevailing fever, and made and lost vast sums of money. He even for a period of years deserted writing for business; and he squandered his time on buffooneries, not merely lecture tours and public banquets, but, for instance, the writing of a book like A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT, which is a deliberate flattery of all that is worst and most vulgar in American life. The man who might have been a kind of rustic Voltaire became the world’s leading after-dinner speaker, charming alike for his anecdotes and his power to make businessmen feel themselves public benefactors. > > \ > > Several of Mark Twain’s books are bound to survive, because they contain invaluable social history. His life covered the great period of American expansion. When he was a child it was a normal day’s outing to go with a picnic lunch and watch the hanging of an Abolitionist, and when he died the aeroplane was ceasing to be a novelty. This period in America produced relatively little literature, and but for Mark Twain our picture of a Mississippi paddle-steamer, or a stage-coach crossing the plains, would be much dimmer than it is. But most people who have studied his work have come away with a feeling that he might have done something more. He gives all the while a strange impression of being about to say something and then funking it, so that LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI and the rest of them seem to be haunted by the ghost of a greater and much more coherent book. Significantly, he starts his autobiography by remarking that a man’s inner life is indescribable. We do not know what he would have said–it is just possible that the unprocurable pamphlet, 1601, would supply a clue but we may guess that it would have wrecked his reputation and reduced his income to reasonable proportions. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/71 "2011-01-05T18:22:55Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@Johnny Angel](#): > > > > How about this, for having it both ways – don’t replace the word, just mark it out in black lines as though it was a redacted document, or with the same symbols we use to replace swear words: > > That’s just embarrassing. I disagree. I think that’s a better idea than ‘slave.’ At least you’re not implying Twain wrote words that he didn’t write. Don’t some editions of _Gulliver’s Travels_ get rid of the ‘Master’ in referring to Mr. Bates over and over? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/72 "2011-01-05T18:23:45Z")
I teach _Huck Finn_ in a Junior (16-17 year-old) AP English class. We do read sections of it aloud, and I tend to slur over “nigger” because it does make some kids uncomfortable to hear it. I pair it with a slave narrative (_Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl_) so that the kids can get a feel for how different “real” slavery was. The two books together make it very clear how derogatory “nigger” was even in the antebellum era, and we talk about it. It’s very noticeable in the pages leading up to the epiphany: > [@](#): > > But I soon give up that notion for two things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn’t, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful **nigger** , and they’d make Jim feel it all the time, and so he’d feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a \*\*nigger \*\*to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. But when Huck begins to reflect, he says: > [@](#): > > And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see \*\*Jim \*\*before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old \*\*Jim \*\*ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. Here, when he’s thinking of his friend, the word drops away. It’s an important transition: not the most subtle literature in the world, but just about right for high school. As far as kids feeling embarrassed, I will say that many African American students are uncomfortable about their slave heritage, or at least react with feelings of shame or guilt or embarrassment when it is brought up. This is by no means universal, but it is not uncommon, and I’ve never understood it. It is something that a teacher needs to be aware of when teaching anything about early American history to African American students. One has to be careful, and set things up to avoid that reaction. I am not sure, however, that getting rid of one word will change that issue. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/73 "2011-01-05T18:25:54Z")
Another one here who thinks that its vandalism of the worst kind. Also very silly. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/74 "2011-01-05T18:30:18Z")
> [@bup](#): > > I disagree. I think that’s a better idea than ‘slave.’ At least you’re not implying Twain wrote words that he didn’t write. True, but only if they make it clear that’s what they’re doing. Even then, @#$%! is something you usually see in comic books. It destroys the severity of the language. I don’t think the black bar does anything either other than call attention to the fact that the book contains a word (219 times) that someone doesn’t want the class to read. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/75 "2011-01-05T18:36:40Z")
I have an honest, tangential question - did Hemingway really, literally write _expletive_ over and over in his dialogue in _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ (for instance, “I \*expletive \*in the milk of thy mother”)? Or did some editor ‘fix’ that for him? > [@](#): > > I don’t think the black bar does anything either other than call attention to the fact that the book contains a word (219 times) that someone doesn’t want the class to read. Agreed. But at least it’s more honest. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/76 "2011-01-05T18:39:40Z")
So are they restoring the chapter where Tom Sawyer teams up with Allan Quartermaine to fight Professor Moriarty? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/77 "2011-01-05T18:54:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > True, but only if they make it clear that’s what they’re doing. Even then, @#$%! is something you usually see in comic books. It destroys the severity of the language. I don’t think the black bar does anything either other than call attention to the fact that the book contains a word (219 times) that someone doesn’t want the class to read. Yes. The symbols are comical. The black bars call attention to the very things they censor. It’s so clear now that you have explained it to me. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/78 "2011-01-05T18:55:15Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@Johnny Angel](#): > > > > How about this, for having it both ways – don’t replace the word, just mark it out in black lines as though it was a redacted document, or with the same symbols we use to replace swear words: > > That’s just embarrassing. So now instead of banning the book because it’s offensive, you’ll ban it because it’s embarrassing? Remember, using the original book without at least _the possibility of_ redaction _isn’t an option_ in most school districts. At least not one the publishers and editors can do anything about. I never read _Huckleberry Finn_ in school. In fact, I haven’t read it at all, but I’m going to add it to my reading list now (as soon as I finish _Moby Dick_, which I’ve been working on–I’ve been on a bit of a classics jag lately.) When I was in seventh grade, we read _Summer of My German Soldier_ by Bette Greene. This novel also contains the word _nigger_. Some of the copies we were given had been redacted by a previous English teacher, who had covered each instance of the word with a black Sharpie. It didn’t make any difference. We new exactly what was covered up. It was no more distracting than a typo or a misprint. The idea that we should have read a completely different book rather than use the copies with the black marks is utterly ridiculous. This was the book the teacher wanted us to study and those were the copies available. Now the teacher who put the marks there, _she_ was a priggish idiot (or the administrators or school board who made her do it were). But _that_ damage was done. Should those copies have been burned and not been read by students? I actually think black-mark redaction is preferable, since it makes the censorship more transparent, but I can see why people would prefer replacement. Now, someone who _prefers_ to read a censored version is probably an idiot, but each of us has every right to be an idiot in our own home. They’re probably less of an idiot than someone who prefers to read Danielle Steele or Dan Brown, but they can read those, too, if they like. It’s no one else’s business. Someone who wants to force others to read only the censored version is an evil idiot. Fortunately, ready access to the original makes them so easy to defy as to render them virtually harmless (_unlike_ idiots who want to remove the book from schools altogether). But people who want to ban the censored version, who object to its very existence, and who want to deny that choice to readers and teachers, well they’re hypocritical idiots. **And that’s the worst kind of idiot there is.** ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/79 "2011-01-05T18:57:50Z")
Who said they wanted to ban it? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441/80 "2011-01-05T19:08:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > Yes. The symbols are comical. The black bars call attention to the very things they censor. It’s so clear now that you have explained it to me. Twain wasn’t using “nigger” to be silly, so I don’t think this does what you want it to. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > So now instead of banning the book because it’s offensive, you’ll ban it because it’s embarrassing? What? I said the suggestion is embarrassing. > [@](#): > > Remember, using the original book without at least _the possibility of_ redaction _isn’t an option_ in most school districts. _Most?_ Since when? It’s one of the most challenged books in the country, but this is the first time I’ve heard anybody say it’s banned from most school districts. I read it in high school, not that that proves anything. > [@](#): > > The idea that we should have read a completely different book rather than use the copies with the black marks is utterly ridiculous. I didn’t say you should have read a different book. > [@](#): > > Now the teacher who put the marks there, _she_ was a priggish idiot (or the administrators or school board who made her do it were). This is what we’re talking about: changing the word or blacking it out. We’re not talking about what you should have done with a book that was already defaced. > [@](#): > > Now, someone who _prefers_ to read a censored version is probably an idiot, but each of us has every right to be an idiot in our own home. We’re talking about what censors and school districts do, not what people do in their own homes. People can do what they want with their own books. That’s not the same as censoring or rewriting them for other people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/huck-finn-publisher-removes-some-offensive-language-thoughts/566441.md?page=5)