New edition removes Mark Twain's 'offensive' words

[Bloodeagle]

New edition removes Mark Twain's 'offensive' words


MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers.
Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don't read."
"It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said.
Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."
The book isn't scheduled to be published until February, at a mere 7,500 copies, but Gribben has already received a flood of hateful e-mail accusing him of desecrating the novels. He said the e-mails prove the word makes people uncomfortable.
"Not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it," he said.
Another Twain scholar, professor Stephen Railton at the University of Virginia, said Gribben was well respected, but called the new version "a terrible idea."
The language depicts America's past, Railton said, and the revised book was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has an unaltered version of "Huck Finn" coming out later this year that includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book.
"If we can't do that in the classroom, we can't do that anywhere," he said.
He said Gribben was not the first to alter "Huck Finn." John Wallace, a teacher at the Mark Twain Intermediate School in northern Virginia, published a version of "Huck Finn" about 20 years ago that used "slave" rather than the N-word.
"His book had no traction," Railton said.
Gribben, a 69-year-old English professor at Auburn University Montgomery, said he would have opposed the change for much of his career, but he began using "slave" during public readings and found audiences more accepting.
He decided to pursue the revised edition after middle school and high school teachers lamented they could no longer assign the books.
Some parents and students have called for the removal of "Huck Finn" from reading lists for more than a half century. In 1957, the New York City Board of Education removed the book from the approved textbook lists of elementary and junior high schools, but it could be taught in high school and bought for school libraries.
In 1998, parents in Tempe, Ariz., sued the local high school over the book's inclusion on a required reading list. The case went as far as a federal appeals court; the parents lost.
Published in the U.S. in 1885, "Huck Finn" is the fourth most banned book in schools, according to "Banned in the U.S.A." by Herbert N. Foerstal, a retired college librarian who has written several books on First Amendment issues.
Gribben conceded the edited text loses some of the caustic sting but said: "I want to provide an option for teachers and other people not comfortable with 219 instances of that word."
In addition to replacing the N-word, Gribben changes the villain in "Tom Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes "half-blood."
Gribben knows he won't change the minds of his critics, but he's eager to see how the book will be received by schools rather than university scholars.
"We'll just let the readers decide," he said.
___
January 05, 2011 07:37 AM EST

[Agrippa]

Newspeak for the classics hmm, well, probably they begin to censor the bible and talmud for its anti-gentile contents and expressions too...guess not though.

[Eldritch]

A former Seattle librarian just named Librarian of the Year says she finds an upcoming revised edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "distressing."

In NewSouth Book's new edition, they will replace the "n-word" and "injun" with the word slave.

"I think it's a mistake, because books are written at a particular time in history, and we need to read them with the knowledge that they're written at those times," says Nancy Pearl, a former Seattle librarian, just named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal. "This is the way the world was then, and this is the way the world is now, when that kind of language isn't acceptable."

Pearl told KIRO Radio's Frank Shiers that if readers are offended by the use of such language in the book they simply don't get it.

"It's not used in a hectoring sort of way, but it's a way that reveals the way the country was at that time," says Pearl. "Reading Huck Finn, as painful as it could be, and is for some people, because of the language that Twain uses. I think those are teaching moments, those are discussion moments."

Pearl says despite the publisher's good intentions, it's still the political correctness police trampling on a literary classic.

"To rewrite history, the way that they're doing that, I think is distressing."

Link. (http://www.mynorthwest.com/category/local_news_articles/20110105/Librarian-of-the-Year-disagrees-with-Huckleberry-Finn-edits/)

Btw now it's been 100 years since Twain's death, isn't his autobiography due to come out? :cool:

[Grumpy Cat]

Btw now it's been 100 years since Twain's death, isn't his autobiography due to come out? :cool:


It's coming out this year, I think.

Anyways, I think this is a stupid idea. Yes, the words are hurtful, but they are not used in a hurtful manner, when used by a character in a book or a movie. The author/actor is converying this about the character, not necessarily himself.

I would never say those words, myself, but if I was an actor and playing a character who uses those words, or writing a book where a character is like that, I'd have no objections, since it's the character, not me.

This is censorship going too far.

Like George Carlin said about racial slurs: context.

[Debaser11]

"Eddie Murphy and Richard Prior use it all the time and we know they're not racist. Why? They're niggers."


And the crowd erupts. Sometimes, the man was right on. Though this day and age even the King of Comedy would have been Michael Richards'd.

[Aemma]

In addition to replacing the N-word, Gribben changes the villain in "Tom Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes "half-blood."
Gribben knows he won't change the minds of his critics, but he's eager to see how the book will be received by schools rather than university scholars.
"We'll just let the readers decide," he said.

This kills me. I mean ok, our kids grow up reading a sanitized version only then to be told later on in adult life, oh by the way, these weren't exactly Mister Twain's words?! What's the ultimate point?

[Bloodeagle]

Mark Twain lite, for the minorities and pc extremist. :rolleyes:

[Óttar]

Ridiculous. Censorship is vile. I was reading a Flashman novel and he used the words "nigger costermonger" and "we fought the niggers at Kandahar." I am distressed to think I may never read another novel with such delightful phrases.

[la bombe]

How ridiculous and silly. I don't even understand the point of changing it as school districts who ban the books are just being silly and reactionary. As if reading those words will make children rabid racists? I read both books in my childhood and survived just fine :rolleyes:

[Grumpy Cat]

Mark Twain lite, for the minorities and pc extremist. :rolleyes:

Not really for minorities. In my experience, it's only the social democrat (I had to find a good word because I hate calling them "liberal") type white people (usually Anglos with too much spare time and money) who get bent out of shape by it. Most minorities know that those words in Mark Twain's writings are not meant in a hurtful manner, but part of the storyline.

I can imagine there are a lot of minorities who think this is stupid. Hell, I'm a minority, technically (and legally by the Nova Scotia Charter of Human Rights and the Civil Rights Act in the US), and I think it's stupid.

It's the same with the whole Christmas thing. It just makes the social democrats happy. I work with a lot of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews, and want to know what the last thing they said to me before I walked out of the office on December 23rd was?

"Merry Christmas".

Also, Christmas Eve, I grabbed breakfast at a joint owned by a Muslim before heading to my mother's place, because that was what was open. He also said "Merry Christmas" to me when I paid for my meal and left.

Minorities don't care. They don't understand this whole PC nonsense and why we don't celebrate our own culture.

[la bombe]

Also, Christmas Eve, I grabbed breakfast at a joint owned by a Muslim before heading to my mother's place, because that was what was open. He also said "Merry Christmas" to me when I paid for my meal and left.

Minorities don't care. They don't understand this whole PC nonsense and why we don't celebrate our own culture.

LOL, that reminds me, I actually got bitched at for saying "Merry Christmas" this year. By guess what... white people from Christian backgrounds. I thought it was lulzy, but if I'm celebrating Christmas, I will say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" regardless of who I'm speaking to. If it's what I celebrate, why would I change what I say to suit someone else?

[Bloodeagle]

Not really for minorities. In my experience, it's only the social democrat (I had to find a good word because I hate calling them "liberal") type white people (usually Anglos with too much spare time and money) who get bent out of shape by it. Most minorities know that those words in Mark Twain's writings are not meant in a hurtful manner, but part of the storyline.

I can imagine there are a lot of minorities who think this is stupid. Hell, I'm a minority, technically (and legally by the Nova Scotia Charter of Human Rights and the Civil Rights Act in the US), and I don't care.

It's the same with the whole Christmas thing. It just makes the social democrats happy. I work with a lot of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews, and want to know what the last thing they said to me before I walked out of the office on December 23rd was?

"Merry Christmas".

Also, Christmas Eve, I grabbed breakfast at a joint owned by a Muslim before heading to my mother's place, because that was what was open. He also said "Merry Christmas" to me when I paid for my meal and left.

Minorities don't care. They don't understand this whole PC nonsense and why we don't celebrate our own culture.
I see what you mean. It is up to these pc extremists to shield the poor minorities from that mealy mouthed Twain and his 19th century crassness.
:)

[Grumpy Cat]

LOL, that reminds me, I actually got bitched at for saying "Merry Christmas" this year. By guess what... white people from Christian backgrounds. I thought it was lulzy, but if I'm celebrating Christmas, I will say "MERRY CHRISTMAS" regardless of who I'm speaking to. If it's what I celebrate, why would I change what I say to suit someone else?

It's stupid. If someone says "Merry Christmas" to you, they have good intentions. Minorities realize that.

I think I strattle a good line here, being Acadian I am both defined as a "minority" but I am also "white", so I see both sides. Minorities don't respect political correctness... AT ALL. Noone does. Even psychiatrists think PC is bad on a solely medical/psychological level.

[Grumpy Cat]

I see what you mean. It is up to these pc extremists to shield the poor minorities from that mealy mouthed Twain and his 19th century crassness.
:)

Yeah, these people actually think minorities have as much time on their hands as they do. Most of them don't.

They're not shielding the poor minorities, they're doing a disservice to them (and to non-minorities) by altering a literary classic... so readers of this revised edition will probably end up being confused as to what the book was about.

[Debaser11]

I said "Merry Christmas" twice to this customer from New Zealand. Both times I got "okay, thanks." Fucker.

[Sword of the Morning]

The irony of this censorship, of course, is that one of the driving forces in Twain's life was alleviating (what he saw as) the unjust way Negroes were treated at the time. As has been noted, use of the word "nigger" was not only accurate dialogue for the period, but also carefully employed in such a way as to generate sympathy for the Black characters.

[Point of interest: While Twain worked tirelessly toward equality for Negroes, he was far from an anti-racist. He regarded American Indians with something approaching a limitless revulsion, and considered them in effect a type of subhuman. Personally, I think he has his racist priorities a bit jumbled, but what do I know? :scratch:]

[Magister Eckhart]

I thought this was old news; didn't they come out with a PC version of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in the 90s?

While tampering with books (which is just blatant censorship, I'd like to point out) is not only wrong, but completely hypocritical of the antira crowd, to be honest I never thought much of the books to begin with; I hardly think they deserve the designation of "classic" that is bestowed on them. I prefer Twain's short stories and satirical essays like Letters from Earth.

[2DREZQ]

I re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn just this last summer. Absolutely delightful. I was surprised to read that "nigger" was used 219 times, though.

Agrippa is right, it's time to start editing the sacred texts of the world to remove any hint of offensive language from them as well.

BTW: I have a copy of "Little Black Sambo" in my collection. I wonder how I can edit that to be inoffensive?

[Sword of the Morning]

BTW: I have a copy of "Little Black Sambo" in my collection. I wonder how I can edit that to be inoffensive?

Easy: Make Sambo into a gentle-souled, morally upright gentleman with a genius-level IQ who happens to be a victim of institutional racism, like all other fictional Negroes.

http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/sambo_face.jpg

"Ah ibs gwine solb dat diffarenshul kalkalus prollum fo' yoo, massa YT."

[Osweo]

social democrat (I had to find a good word because I hate calling them "liberal")

Good usage. SDy is all about 'fairness' being alloted to social groups, and the ignoring of the plight of the individual in the process of restructuring society to fit an abstract model. PC bollocks like changing old books is exactly such a matter of catering to an abstract social class that doesn't really have any existence in real life. Just as SD can only be arranged by a self-appointed elite, these do-gooders have taken upon themselves to decide FOR the 'minorities' what they need. Paternalism in its most patronising form, if you'll forgive the tautology.

[Great Dane]

The fuss about nigger reminds of a big ado when I was in junior high concerning the word 'niggardly', which means stingy but some black people have a hypersensitivity regarding any n-word.

[Crossbow]

Unforgivable and perplexing, a professor who acts on his own authority and considers himself entitled to delete words in a classic written many years ago.
Let him stick to his pc-audience, and keep his hands off the work of others.

[Grey]

They've done this before. I read a censored copy as a child and ended up embarrassing myself at the district quiz bowl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_bowl) with the answer "Outlaw Joe."

[Debaser11]

I think anyone censoring the work of a writer (particularly a writer that is dead who can't defend against such action) is pretty much the defintion of a nigger.

[Magister Eckhart]

The fuss about nigger reminds of a big ado when I was in junior high concerning the word 'niggardly', which means stingy but some black people have a hypersensitivity regarding any n-word.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that they lack the intelligence to differentiate, and also because everything negative in their lives is "racis'". "Racism" as an accusation is their go-to mechanism to function as part of our society, to make up for an inferiority, be it in-born or acquired, to native Westerners. This inferiority could be the result of poor handling on our part, ill-preparation for a formerly enslaved group to participate in our society because we were so eager to give them "equality", or it could be because the American Negro is naturally the lowest of his kind (one has to assume that they had some inferiority to their fellow Africans-- after all, they ended up as slaves and their relatives in Africa who sold them to Europeans did not). One way or another, there is an insufficiency that makes the Negro in America reach for anything that can give him a hand up over the European American.

[Aces High]

I have always been curious to find out when the pc brigade get round to editing R H Dana's "Two years before the mast".

I dont think they will like to read what he has to say about the mexicans in the young California he saw.

[Raskolnikov]

Only reason we had to read this book is because it fits into a story of egalitarian progress from racist backwardness. They can change 'their' book all they want because the way they presented it and all the others was already a false history.