There’s a war going on out there, only instead of young men and women in uniform, we’re losing words. Sadly, the North American vernacular suffered a severe blow when Canada’s second-oldest magazine ceded significant linguistic territory by capitulating to Nazi-like online porn filters and changing its name.

After 90 years, The Beaver has changed its title to Canada’s History. Executives at the Winnipeg-based publication finally conceded defeat to the forces of adolescent humor, citing frequent censorship by spam blockers and subsequent difficulty in reaching new online readers.

“The Beaver was an impediment online,” publisher Deborah Morrison said. “Several readers asked us to change the title because their spam filters at home or at work were blocking it,” she added. “I’ve even had emails bounce back because I had inadvertently typed the term in the heading.”

What Morrison considers to be a smart business decision we see as a white flag in the struggle to keep our everyday language from falling into the hands of those that seek to pervert it one word at a time. And “beaver” is a too vital a term to lose.

Other words may have fallen before, but at least there are still alternates for them that we can still use in everyday, radio-friendly conversations. For instance, while the P-word may be vulgar to some, there’s nothing reasonably dirty about “feline,” “kitty,” or “cat.”

Likewise, “cock” may be blocked by online filters, but rooster is not. And the only time “camel” is considered unseemly is when it’s immediately followed by the word “toe.”

“Beaver,” however, has no readily recallable alternative. What other, non-snicker-inducing moniker can English-speaking people use to describe what is arguably the most industrious member of the rodent family? “Castor canadensis” just doesn’t seem that catchy.

It was bad enough when Beaver College in Philadelphia gave in and changed its name to Arcadia University. Now, thanks to the folks in Winnipeg, the term has been all but surrendered.

In fact, about the only major institution that’s staying strong, showing no sign of submission, is Oregon State University. The sports teams at OSU, including the women’s teams, proudly carry the nickname “The Beavers.”

Unfortunately, they lost a major ally in Canada last month when Morrison and her staff gave up the good fight to keep “beaver” as a respectable member of the English language. As far as we’re concerned, the folks at The Beaver are a bunch of pussies.