bowdlerisation
Sanitizing offensive content
Bowdlerisation is the removal or softening of material considered offensive, vulgar, or otherwise unsuitable—especially in literary works.
The practice takes its name from Thomas Bowdler, who published expurgated editions of Shakespeare in the early 1800s, removing passages he deemed improper for women and children.
The term now applies broadly to any sanitising edit: The film's bowdlerisation for television cut all the profanity.
Also spelled bowdlerization.
Excessive concern with decorum
- puritanismRigid moral severity
- Victorianism19th-century British moral strictness
- proprietyCorrectness of conduct
- decencyMoral appropriateness in behavior
modesty · prudishness · squeamishness · priggishness · stuffiness · strait-laced · censoriousness · moralism
Obscuring sensitive text
- sanitizationCleaning to remove pathogens
- purificationRemoval of contaminants
- suppressionForcible prevention or concealment
- excisionCutting out of tissue
deletion · editing · alteration · modification · abridgment · cutting · removal · omission
Mild substitute for bluntness
- whitewashingConcealing unpleasant facts
- dilutionReduction in concentration
- weakeningBecoming less strong
- diminishmentProcess of becoming smaller
glossing · sanitizing · sterilization · defanging · neutering · blunting · muting · taming
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- expurgatedRemoved objectionable material
- abridgedReduced in length
- adaptedMade fit for purpose
- revisedChanged after reconsideration
prudery
Excessive concern with decorum
- puritanismRigid moral severity
- Victorianism19th-century British moral strictness
- proprietyCorrectness of conduct
decency · modesty · prudishness · squeamishness · priggishness · stuffiness · strait-laced · censoriousness · moralism · respectability
redaction
Obscuring sensitive text
- sanitizationCleaning to remove pathogens
- purificationRemoval of contaminants
- suppressionForcible prevention or concealment
excision · deletion · editing · alteration · modification · abridgment · cutting · removal · omission · revision
euphemism
Mild substitute for bluntness
- whitewashingConcealing unpleasant facts
- dilutionReduction in concentration
- weakeningBecoming less strong
diminishment · glossing · sanitizing · sterilization · defanging · neutering · blunting · muting · taming · domestication
Shakespeare
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- expurgatedRemoved objectionable material
- abridgedReduced in length
- adaptedMade fit for purpose
bowdlerisationunabridged edition
Text with nothing removed
original text · critical edition · complete edition · literal translation · restoration
bowdlerisationamplification
Increase in intensity
explicit content · provocation · unvarnished truth · sensationalism · exploitation
expurgate, bowdlerize, expurgation, bowdlerization, bowdlerise, bowdlerised