bowdlerize

<font size="-1" face="arial, helvetica"> <p> <strong> <font color="#000066">Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 24, 2020 is:</font> </strong> </p> <p> <strong>bowdlerize</strong> &#149; \BOHD-ler-ize\&nbsp; &#149; <em>verb</em><br /> <p><strong>1</strong> <em>literature</em> <strong>:</strong> to <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expurgate">expurgate</a> (something, such as a book) by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar</p> <p><strong>2 :</strong> to modify by <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abridge">abridging</a>, simplifying, or distorting in style or content</p> </p> <p> <strong>Examples:</strong><br /> <p>"Certainly, there's no risk that all art will be <em>bowdlerized</em> into nice stories about people saving puppies, but it's not wrong to note a fading appetite for antiheroes and bad behavior." — <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/11/magazine/best-songs.html#cover">Jonah E. Bromwich, <em>The New York Times</em>, 12 Mar. 2020</a></p> <p>"Under his rule, career scientists are barred from speaking at conferences, websites are <em>bowdlerized</em>, and the respected National Climate Assessment is threatened by political appointees who want to soften its most dire conclusions." — <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/25/opinion/pucini-gelato-climate-change-education/">Renée Loth, <em>The Boston Globe</em>, 25 Nov. 2019</a></p> </p> <p> <strong>Did you know?</strong><br /> <p>Few editors have achieved the notoriety of Thomas Bowdler. He was trained as a physician, but when illness prevented him from practicing medicine, he turned to warning Europeans about unsanitary conditions at French watering places. Bowdler then carried his quest for purification to literature, and in 1818 he published his <em>Family Shakspeare</em> [sic], a work in which he promised that "those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family." The sanitized vo