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#1: Valerie Mates (valerie) on Sep 4, 2020

In the original British edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there's a character who has won an award for the most creative use of the word f*** in a screenplay.

In the American edition, Douglas Adams has added an additional rant where he says that throughout the galaxy, people understand that words are just words and not worth getting offended over, and so sensible people don't think of any words as bad, forbidden words. With the exception of the word Belgium, which everyone in the entire galaxy knows is an absolutely horrifyingly awful word. Except on small backwater planets, where the people are so clueless that they would use that word as the name of a country.

Then he resumes the original narrative, except that instead the same character has won the same award for the most creative use of the word Belgium in a screenplay.

I am not a big fan of swearing, but I've always admired how, in the process of removing a swear word from his book, Douglas Adams managed to fit in a lovely and creative rant indirectly aimed at whoever made him remove the swearing.

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