Books without swearwords? There’s an app for that

A new e-reader allows users to replace offensive words with more palatable alternatives, with settings ranging from ‘clean’ to ‘squeaky clean’

Do you like your books as they come, clean, or squeaky clean? Because there’s now an app that will let you state your preference, remove profanities from the text of your ebook, and replace them with “clean” alternatives.

Clean Reader – “the only e-reader that gives you the power to hide swear words” – sells more than a million ebooks from its online book store. Its app allows users to search the text, and “put a non-transparent ‘highlight’” over anything potentially offensive. The blanked-out word is replaced, when it is tapped, with one judged suitably safe. So in a passage from its online demonstration – “‘Don’t tempt me, you little bastard,’ growled Vyder” – bastard becomes jerk. In a slice of a David Baldacci novel, “Pick up your damn game, Bobby”, becomes “Pick up your darn game, Bobby”.

“Pick up your damn game, Bobby”, becomes “Pick up your darn game, Bobby”

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