Things shared on Jan 19ths: asterisking words

Before people disguised vulgar words with asterisks, they used dashes. This is what Charlotte Bronte thought of that: “The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does—what feeling it spares—what horror it