I am firmly in the group that says I would really rather you didn't although I won't press charges, that is unless you go around changing male to female and back again.

I think you must, unless perhaps you are in a small, private company of scholars, delete the word "nigger" in songs. There are some others as well that are offensive.

If someone has not made it scan nicely, my opinion is that in that case you can. This would not be true in the case of most old songs so it is not usually a worry.

Whoever tried to rhyme warrior and bore ya should have that line changed by everybody.

But in general, people generally do a bad job changing words and lose some of the beauty as well as the history. Shoudl they change Belfast City to Belgrade City in I'll tell my ma if they are from Belgrade? They probably couldn't help it. Should they change Aragon Mill to Belfast Mill? I would rather they didn't but again I won't press charges..I can see why they would want to.

Can they improve on songs by Stephen Foster? Robert Burns? Gordon Bok? They try but I have never heard an improvement, alhtough in SF sometimes words now considered racist should be taken away.

Oh well..most "improvements" are anything but and changing male to female is awful in my opinion. Most people do not have the ear or the skill to improve a song or the sense to leave it alone. But to each his own. mg