A BRIEF WORD ABOUT CENSORSHIP

As long as there have been writers and written material there has been censorship or attempts at censorship.  Writers have been censored because they wrote about intimate matters, such as sex, or they wrote about politics and what they wrote offended the powerful.

Even in the twenty first century some books have come under constant attack.  J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye has been a frequent target of censors.  Vladimir Nabakov's Lolita offended the mores of many.  John Steinbeck has been attacked as a "Marxist" for novels such as The Grapes of Wrath.

For a very long time writers were prohibited from using "bad words."  Hemingway had a constant battle with his publisher because he wasn't allowed to use the more descriptive profane words in his fiction that people use in real life.  I like the way he substituted the word "obscenity" for actual obscenities in For Whom the Bell Tolls.

We've come a long way since Rhett Butler shocked people in the movie version of Gone With the Wind.  "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."  Apparently, people did give a damn about the use of the word "damn."