Back in elementary school, my teacher demanded to know why the composition I had just submitted was full of irregularly-shaped holes where words had been cut out. I reluctantly admitted to him that my mom made me remove all of the dirty bits. The teacher pressed for a further explanation for why such extreme excision was necessary, if I was colorfully pushing the limits of acceptable language. "Mr. Innisborough, I can assure you that I did not use any profanity in my story. In fact, the only four-letter word that should make you uncomfortable at the moment is 'barf', as in the strained carrots that my baby cousin spewed onto my paper. And um, sir, you might want to be more careful, the page is still a little damp, and I don't think I was able to cut out
all of the dirty bits."
