Shit! Damn! Hell! Canadians hate swearing.
More precisely, we hate offensive language in our books.
As I celebrate Freedom to Read week Feb. 19–25, 2023, on a cold Canadian morning I read that Canadians don’t mind reading about murder, rape, marauding, oppressive regimes, misogyny, racism, and child abuse in their Bible but flinch at its offensive language.
The Bible (apologies, I don’t know which version is condemned here), made the list of 29 challenged books in Canada.
Of the 29 books listed here, we can see the reasons for their challenges presented below in my wholly unscientific yet handy-dandy list. The reasons were grouped by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as supplied by Freedom to Read Week and the Book and Periodical Council.
Reason for which the books were challenged:
Violence and offensive language = 1 book
Offensive language = 13 books
Satanism and witchcraft = 1 book
Unknown reasons = 6 books
Sex and violence = 2 books
Sex = 1 book
Sex, offensive language, satanism and witchcraft = 1 book
Violence = 1 book
Sex, violence, and offensive language = 2 books
Sex and offensive language = 1 book
Offensive language and religious issues = 1 book
What the actual HELL?
A handful of goat ball sucking book haters have challenged 6 books for reasons they don’t bloody well know?
Now that is offensive.
