When my orthodox Jewish students quote passages that use the word "God," they write "G-d" because they believe they are not to use the name of the lord.   I don't object.  Similarly, I would not object to someone who had a principled belief that they shouldn't use any number of objectionable words but were willing to use ellipses or dashes or asterisks as placeholders.  

Twain would probably make fun of the practice, as his repeated use of "Halifax" as substitute for "hell" in his early writings suggests, but he capitulated to the editor's blue pencil quite often.  Plus ca change . . . .

Gregg  

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Twain Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ladd, Barbara
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2018 3:27 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: I failed a "fraud detection" test for previous post on quoting sensitive material from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I just posted a question about quoting from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn = and apparently my post "failed a fraud detection test."


I am myself.... not a robot or phisher.... I'll try again.


a question for teachers in colleges and universities and people in publishi=
ng:


--I cannot find anything in the Chicago Manual of Style or the MLA Style Gu= ide (or through Google) that deals with the use of the n-word in written qu= otations from literature (in academic papers written by students). My posit= ion has always been that one quotes verbatim provided the quotation is esse= ntial to the argument. I am very uncomfortable with students using "n****r"=  (which they do) or using brackets or ellipsis to avoid typing out the word=  in a quotation from Twain or any other writer. I tell them that if they ob= ject to typing out the word in their papers, they may summarize the content=  of the quotation in their own words, but if the quotation is essential to = what they are arguing, they need to type the passage as it actually appears=  in the text.


A search for the subject online just shows articles and blogs and so on dea= ling with the use of the word in speech, but not in academic writing.


I'm curious about how others deal with this.


Barbara Ladd
Professor of English
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
tel: 404 727-7998
fax: 404 727-2605
Office hours:  Mondays and Wednesdays 10-11 a.m.; and by appointment.





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