Self censorship versus honesty - Warning Explicit!

When I was planning my blog about Philip Larkin and his poem 'This Be the Verse', I spent some time thinking about how I would approach his 'tricky' words. As anyone involved in museum interpretation knows I had to think about my audience, the age of the readers, the likelihood of causing offence etc. Would a warning be needed? Would I go for The Guardian newspaper approach of liberal full spelling honesty, or the faux censorship by removing some of the letters and replacing them with '*' without actually obscuring what the word actually is. In the end I assumed the readers of my blog were basically illiterate and and it didn't matter what was written so I thought f**k 'em and ploughed on regardless. Well not really - my decision was the product of logical thinking.

Why bother obscuring a word without actually obscuring the full offensive violence that it incorporates. It is a cop out. If I wrote 'Donald T***p' rather than 'Donald Trump' does it lessen all the offensive idiocy that that name implies? Not in the slightest. But if I genuinely tried to remove the offensiveness that he embodies I would end up writing  '*o**** **u**' then we are reduced to gibberish. You see it is tricky.

But me being a clever genius sort of person. I asked myself, what would happen if I used '*' to just obscure normal words - what would happen? Here is a small sample below of quotes by famous people given the Museum of Unreason treatment (the actual words are shown at the end of the blog).

1. "Those who dare to f*** miserably can achieve greatly" John F Kennedy

2. "The greatest accomplishment is not in ever f***ing, but in rising again after you f***." Vince Lombardi

3. "Great acts are made up of s**** deeds" Lao Tzu

4. "Only passions, great passions can elevate the s*** to great things" Denis Diderot

5. "I have learned to use the word '**********' with the greatest caution" Wernher Von Braun

6. "All great thoughts are achieved by w**king" Friedrich Nietzsche

7. "Behind every great fortune lies a great c****" Honore de Balzac

The answer is it makes them really filthy - be honest with yourself it does.

What about replacing the word 'fuck' with a less offensive term such as 'enthusiastic sexual intercourse'. That seems to imply a more high minded approach to the subject. So lets apply this to the Philip Larkin himself. What would the opening line of 'This Be the Verse' now look like - it won't scan, but that's not the point I'm trying to  make.

'They indulge in vigorous sexual intercourse with you, your mum and dad'

I really don't think Larkin had incest in mind when he wrote the poem; and yet again trying to move away from the original word makes the meaning even ruder.


So the answer to the self censorship conundrum is now clear. To use the word 'fuck' is a true and honest approach. To use the word 'f**k' is the product of dirty mind making minds even dirtier. To alter the word entirely changes the meaning and will probably land you in gaol.

You can thank me later.


The original words
1. fail
2. falling & fall
3. small
4. soul
5. impossible
6. walking
7. crimes