When I first read Romeo and Juliet, I thought I was reading the "real" version. Nowhere was it said that this was an abridged version of the classic, and I did not question what was written in my textbook. I look at it now and realize exactly how censored it is. Then I realized how much they had fed me and how I believed all this. The textbook from which ninth graders in this city read contains many censored passages. According to the Merriam-Webster web page, the term bowdlerize means "to expurgate by omitting or modifying parts considered vulgar" or "to modify by abbreviating, simplifying, or distorting the style or content." (Updated September 1997). Censorship, in contrast, is defined as "a word derived from Latin, and also a concept based on the Roman idea of ​​social and legal justice. The word 'censor' comes from the Latin censere, meaning to tax, evaluate, or judge, or all three." (Hoyt 9). To me, I believe this is what Mr. Thomas Bowdler was doing. Censorship consists of judging what is right or correct according to ourselves and therefore attributing value or value to certain literary works. Mr. Bowdler was taking it upon himself to deem what was appropriate for people young and old to read when they read the great works of William Shakespeare. This horrific act is seen most prominently in the textbooks of today's high school freshmen. On a recent visit to my old high school, I took a look at my old textbook. It's the one I so fondly remember reading Romeo and Juliet from. This is the textbook currently used in Unit 5 high schools here in Bloomington-Normal. It is the Adventures in Reading textbook published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. When I first read Romeo and Juliet, I thought I was reading the "real" version. Nowhere was it said that this was an abridged version of the classic, and I did not question what was written in my textbook. I look at it now and realize exactly how expurgated it is. Then I realized how much they had fed me and how I believed everything. The textbook from which ninth graders in this city read has many passages expurgated. For starters, all of the same Act I passages that Janet Zweig shows as being excluded from the Understanding Literature textbook were also excluded from Adventures in Textbook Reading, plus some.