Photo by Glyn Lowe Photos.

If you missed it over the weekend, Washington Post ombudsman Patrick B. Pexton had an interesting piece on a topic that’s been in the local news of late — what words can writers use on the family-friendly pages of the regional newspaper of record?

When it comes to colorful ones, well, not very many.

The whole topic came to light after a raucous meeting of the D.C. Council, the Post’s reporting on which included Councilmember David Catania being quoted as telling his colleague Phil Mendelson “I don’t give a shit what you think.” In the same story, Councilmember Jack Evans was quoted as calling the proposal under discussion “bullshit.” The naughty words were some of the few which have ever been printed in the Post, the most famous of which is, without question, Dick Cheney telling Sen. Patrick J. Leahy to “fuck yourself” in June 2004.

The dilemma, as Pexton notes, is “whether The Post should reflect in its stories how people talk, whether and how to quote them when they swear, and whether as writers we can occasionally throw in the well-placed expletive to convey emphasis, tone and verisimilitude.” Pexton’s examples make a good case that the Post is probably a little too uptight when it comes to the expletive slang, citing a pair of examples of editorial changes to stories by Style writer Dan Zak:

[…]“After winning ‘best in show’ from the Westminster Kennel Club, a dog has every right to get cranky, to go diva, to not sit, to not stay. But over the past 24 hours, as paparazzi have trailed her around New York, Grand Champion Foxcliffe Hickory Wind has borne her title with quiet dignity and grace. This bitch isn’t acting like one.”

Zak had another story altered, in one installment of this summer’s “Night Lives” series about nocturnal occupations in which he rode with paramedics. The emergency workers were called to a dive bar and came upon a man bleeding from a fight in which broken beer bottles were used. Zak’s “Someone beat the hell out of this guy,” was changed to “He has been badly beaten.”

Hell? Bitch? Look, no one’s arguing that the Post should be inserting “fuck” into every story just for, well, fuck’s sake — but when editors are editing a direct quote of an ambulance driver which includes the word “hell,” it might be time to get some less uptight copy editors over on 15th Street.

I mean, the Post has a television critic, right? Perhaps that individual could explain to the copy desk that the kinds of words being pulled from direct quotes and Style writers’ prose are being uttered on network television all the time these days.