NOTE: This article is
more than 12 years old...
Benedicte Page
Wed 5 Jan 2011
New Huckleberry Finn Edition Censors 'N-Word'
Alabama publisher
says expurgation of more than 200 'hurtful epithets' will counter 'pre-emptive
censorship' that has seen
Mark
Twain's classic dropped from curricula
A new US edition of Mark Twain's classic novel The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to be published with a notable language
alteration: all instances of the offensive racial term "nigger" are to
be expunged.
The word occurs more than 200 times in Huckleberry Finn,
first published in 1884, and its 1876 precursor, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,
which tell the story of the boys' adventures along the Mississippi river in the
mid-19th century. In the new edition,
the word will be replaced in each instance by "slave". The word
"injun" will also be replaced in the text.
************
"The Times They Are a-Changin”...Years ago running a
red Light was a rare thing. Now I see red lights being run every day.
Years ago if someone said, “I Object” very likely the
response would be, “Get Over It”. Now “I Object”, and it’s even more powerful
companion “I’m Offended”, makes everyone who hears these words stop and
immediately become uncomfortable and apologetic.
If the Slavic People object to the change referred to in the
Subject of this Blog Posting will there immediately be a desperation search to
find a new substitute word?
Origin of word “slave”...
Etymology. From
Middle English sclave, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus
(“slave”), from Late Latin Sclāvus (“Slav”), because Slavs were often forced
into slavery in the Middle Ages.
************
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin have long been referred to as
Classics but now they are under attack.
Fella thinks it is a shame some feel they have a right to
change what others create, and after they are done changing, they say, “Yes, we changed it but it is still the
same”. It’s not. It’s changed.
I may be stumbling over my words here but this Doctor Lady below
handles her words a lot better and makes me want to say, “Yea, that’s what I meant”...
But the idea of changing
the language in the novel in order to boost its popularity is still viewed with
bafflement in many quarters. Dr Sarah Churchwell, senior lecturer in US
literature and culture at the University of East Anglia, said the development
made her "incandescent" with anger. "The fault lies with the
teaching, not the book. You can't say 'I'll change Dickens so it is compatible
with my teaching method'. Twain's books are not just literary documents but
historical documents, and that word is totemic because it encodes all of the
violence of slavery. The point of the book is that Huckleberry Finn starts out
racist in a racist society, and stops being racist and leaves that society.
These changes mean the book ceases to show the moral development of his
character. They have no merit and are misleading to readers. The whole point of
literature is to expose us to different ideas and different eras, and they
won't always be nice and benign. It's dumbing down."
(Fella did the underlining above.)
************
If you think Mark Twain’s works being changed is the end of the
changing because now the Change People are satisfied and there will be no more
changing, think again...
NOTE: This article is
more than 6 years old...
Would I kid
u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: If I
knew this word existed, I would have used it...Or would I have?...
bowdlerize
transitive verb
1. To
remove material that is considered offensive or objectionable from (a book, for
example); expurgate.
2. To
expurgate, as a book, by omitting or modifying the parts considered offensive;
to remove morally objectionable parts; -- said of literary texts.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
5th Edition.
