#more#The New York Times used the word “nigger” in its account of the new bowdlerized edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This was the correct decision, all the more noteworthy because the Times is quite staid in its usage. But unusual stories may require unusual measures, and it is childish not to employ them.
National Review is equally staid, and we are to be commended for that. But in the late Sixties James Burnham used the word “motherfucker” in a column discussing the language of New Left antiwar protesters.