What does de-bleated mean?

[cainxinth]

I was reading about the new film “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and read this passage:

The goats in the title refers to “Goat Lab” a secret enterprise housed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The idea is to keep a herd of de-bleated goats (100 strong and de-bleated so that they don’t make a lot of noise that passers-by might hear) around so that special forces and other military operatives can do various things with them including staring them to death. The idea is that if some people can kill goats just by staring at them, think what they can do to Al Qaeda!

What is de-bleating? Removal of a goat’s larynx? Only a goat’s or any animal?

[Polycarp]

I suspect it may be a pun on “depleted” (as in “depleted uranium”).

[kayaker]

@cainxinth

What is de-bleating? Removal of a goat’s larynx? Only a goat’s or any animal?

People can have their larynx removed, but people do not bleat, goats do. Similarly, a dog could be debarked via laryngeal surgical manipulation.

[groman]

@kayaker

People can have their larynx removed, but people do not bleat, goats do. Similarly, a dog could be debarked via laryngeal surgical manipulation.

So what would be the correct term for surgically removing the larynx of a human? “Devoicing”? “Detalking”?

[dracoi]

On a human, it would be a laryngectomy because the purpose would be more than just to make the person silent (such as to remove cancer caused by smoking). Only with animals do we do the surgery specifically to make them quiet.

Also, when you de-bark a dog, you don’t remove the larynx entirely - you just disable the parts that make the noise.

[smiling_bandit]

I think the movie might be a comedy, and it might be making it up.

[kayaker]

@groman

So what would be the correct term for surgically removing the larynx of a human? “Devoicing”? “Detalking”?

Laryngectomy

[groman]

@kayaker

Laryngectomy

It’s a laryngectomy for a goat or a dog as well, no? My question was referring to a probably entirely hypothetical procedure of a laryngectomy for the sole purpose of preventing a person from talking.

[kayaker]

@groman

It’s a laryngectomy for a goat or a dog as well, no? My question was referring to a probably entirely hypothetical procedure of a laryngectomy for the sole purpose of preventing a person from talking.

Dogs, goats, etc that have elective surgery to devocalize do not have their entire larynx removed. In people, there is no surgery akin to devocalization of the dog, that is an elective surgical procedure whose sole goal is to devocalize.

ETA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convenience_devocalization