Thursday, January 01, 2009

The Language Police

From Diane Ravitch's fascinating, and chilling, book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn:

Sometimes publishers make revisions to forestall problems, knowing that states like California and Texas won't tolerate certain words. For example, a story titled "A Perfect Day for Ice Cream" by Patricia Zettner was selected by two textbook publishers for inclusion in junior high school literature anthologies after it had appeared in Seventeen magazine. To comply with California's ban on junk foods, the publishers removed references to chili burgers, pizza, and ice cream and changed the title of the story to "A Perfect Day." The story's allusions to "kamikaze ball" and Gloria Steinem were edited out to avoid likely complaints in California about ethnic stereotyping and likely objections in Texas to feminist references.

2 comments:

Kurt Harden said...

My son and I were in a wonderful college interview and the Program Director made an off-hand remark that generated a smile: "But I won't hold you accountable for the corruption of our educational system."
I plan to order the book.

Michael Wade said...

Ten points for the Program Director!

Ravitch's book is fascinating and disturbing. We've all heard of the politically correct censoring but she reveals items that seldom make the newspapers.