Why “bowdlerizer” is a great word
BOWDLERIZER — [Noun] A person who removes or modifies parts of a text considered vulgar, offensive, or politically sensitive. From the verb bowdlerize (to expurgate a text, named after Thomas Bowdler, editor of an expurgated edition of Shakespeare) + the agent-noun suffix -er. Unlike a censor, who wields the cold authority of the state to suppress, or an editor, who may refine for clarity, a bowdlerizer is a self-appointed guardian of propriety, operating under the anxious belief that art must be laundered for consumption. He is the scissor-wielding hand that snips the bawdy pun from a Restoration comedy, the pious pen that inks a modest gown onto a literary heroine, the timid voice that replaces a soldier's oath with a sterile dash—all in the service of a cleanliness that sterilizes the very pulse of life, leaving a text safe, sanitized, and bereft of its vital humors.