Poet John Milton famously dictated Paradise Lost while his daughter transcribed. Google has this week added voice typing to Docs, giving everyone the power to be a dictatorial poet.

But with the power of Milton's God, Google has decided to censor what can and can’t be dictated through the software. Namely, no swearing.


WIRED decided to test out the Google Docs no swearing policy.

In a prude manner, voice typing replaces the letters of common swear words with asterisks, typing "f***" and "s***" in place of the swears. It does however spell "w***ker" and "b***ch" in full, although we've blanked them out to avoid offence. Google objection to swearwords in Docs voice typing was first spotted by bloggerGretchen McCulloch.


Google has come under fire in the past for censoring swear words in Android's voice-to-text and Google Translate.

The company announced voice typing along with a whole new set of functions for Google Docs in a blog post yesterday. "Fall brings a new sense of energy and excitement as teammates get back to work," wrote Google engineering director Jude Flannery. "To help you be more productive than ever this season, Google Docs is getting a whole new set of tools."

Along with voice typing, the new kit includes a research feature for saving quotes, facts and images, an explore function in Sheets, and a bunch of new templates for Forms, Docs, Sheets and Slides.