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Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to
by bko 4y ago
Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen"
https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104857089 https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104857089
- carabiner 4y ago[flagged]
- bitwize 4y agoJoseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling wrote favorably about colonialism; they were replaced with more agreeable authors. Use of gendered language is marginalizing to nonbinary people. It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, once you take a position of empathy.
- babyshake 4y ago> Use of gendered language is marginalizing to nonbinary people. References to brothers or sisters, or mothers or fathers, is offensive to nonbinary people? In all seriousness, not trying to start a flame war, why is that? Is a reference to hair offensive to a bald person?
- snowflakepower 4y ago[flagged]
- willcipriano 4y ago[flagged]
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoWell said. We live in strange times.
- ilyt 4y ago>For some reason the mental health profession has decided that this particular set of delusions should be reinforced, unlike other types of body dismorphia like anorexia. I think the reason here is pretty simple: Turning someone into patient for life is profitable.
- jrmg 4y agoOffensive is probably too strong a word. The reason to replace an aggregate ‘brothers and sisters’ with ‘siblings’, ‘mothers and fathers’ with ‘parents’, or ‘boys and girls’ with ‘children’ is because for all of these the replacement suffices without calling attention to gender when it’s not necessary to do so. There’s also an argument that the ‘X and Y’ phrasing makes the ‘X’ seem more important than the ‘Y’, or makes it seem like the ‘default’ - just a little, but with repetition the impression is reinforced. If there’s an alternative collective word to use, it avoids this ‘ordering’ issue with no real downside. Note that all these arguments make sense in even if you consider gender to be a binary thing.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoThe words siblings, parents and children all existed when Dahl wrote these books, yet he chose to use brothers and sisters, mom and dad, and boys and girls. He specifically used these words, because he's the author and wanted to convey a specific meaning.
- jrmg 4y agoI wasn’t trying to make a value judgement about replacing the existing words in Dahl’s already-written books. The parent comment wanted an explanation to _why_ someone might select ‘siblings’ over ‘brothers and sisters’ and I answered with my understanding. I do now attempt to use the single-word non-gendered collective nouns in speech myself for the reasons I gave, and I think it’s a good idea to do so. To discuss the edits to Dahl’s work: I would argue that for these ‘Xs and Ys’ examples he was probably just using the popular idioms of the time rather than choosing them to convey a specific meaning as you say. That would certainly be what I would’ve done, without much consideration, 20 years ago! But that’s obviously not the case for all the edits that are reportedly being made. The edits in aggregate do make me uneasy. I’m not sure how I’d feel if they were more limited.
- vlunkr 4y ago> I do now attempt to use the single-word non-gendered collective nouns in speech myself for the reasons I gave I hate to be the guy that cries “1984,” but do we really have to completely neuter our language to avoid every imagined offense? Are there people out there who’s egos are so fragile that they can’t handle “gentlemen” coming after “ladies?”
- heavyset_go 4y agoStep-brothers, step-sisters, step-mothers and step-fathers exist, as do foster parents, foster sibling, legal guardians, etc. Some kids' mother or father died, or they're divorced, estranged, etc. Using the perspective from the OP, it's a kids' book, using a couple of different synonyms might help them better understand what they're reading and not walk away believing that there's something wrong with their family or themselves.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoIt’s more interesting to see the word ‘woman’ being canceled in subtle ways at once respectable institutes like The Atlantic.
- flandish 4y agoFor sure. Just remember though, without changes the work can “simply” retire and the story approached by those who go into it “in the know.” But … retired stories don’t sell and don’t get turned into remakes, ticket sales, etc… Rewritten stories are fine, I like lots of them (the new ghostbusters, I adored..) but this, to me, seems like prep work for a lazy hollywood..
- mpalmer 4y agoI can be (and in fact am) empathetic. At the same time, I still take the position that non-binary people and other cultural minorities can simultaneously enjoy non-edited older fiction and understand that it may not have been written with them in mind (and may even be mocking or a little mean). Write new books. Make them as inclusive or exclusive as you want. I just think it's very telling that you hear so much about "erasure" and yet changing an author's words and intent like this is celebrated.
- tptacek 4y agoYeah, that comment is just saying you can understand the changes empathetically. It's not saying they're good.
- mandmandam 4y ago... Maybe you should read GP's comment again. It's not asking for empathy, it's judgmental and imo a little unhinged. It claims saying words like 'shrill' are "gendered", and certain authors are "more agreeable" (what the fuck?) as if that justifies these changes. Ask for empathy in a preface, or an introduction, if you have to. Stay the fuck out of Dahl's work. You don't have to like it, but changing it is obscene - Dahl is not alive to permit these changes, and would probably be horrified. They're his fucking words.
- tptacek 4y agoThe word "shrill" (unlike "screeching") is absolutely gendered. It's still fine to use it, and I wouldn't have made, well, any of these edits, but there is nothing unhinged about the comment you're replying to. Don't go looking for enemies on HN threads!
- mandmandam 4y ago[flagged]
- 4y ago
- ilyt 4y agoYour triggers are your responsibility; you can just not read author instead of pushing for and celebrating desecration of their work. > once you take a position of empathy. ...and the usual thinly veiled "if you don't agree with my opinion you're a Bad Person". How about taking position of sensibility for once ?
- heavyset_go 4y ago> Your triggers are your responsibility; you can just not read author instead of pushing for and celebrating desecration of their work. The same argument can be made about people who are triggered by this edition of the book. You can just not read the new edition instead of pushing for and celebrating the silencing of its owners.
- ilyt 4y agoSure, disclose it is the edited version for "sensitive readers offended by writing of the time" of minority group on the cover and I'm all fine with it. But it won't happen because that would be honesty and we can't have that from people that push for the changes
- josephcsible 4y ago> The same argument can be made about people who are triggered by this edition of the book. You can just not read the new edition instead of pushing for and celebrating the silencing of its owners. Nobody would be upset if they were just making a new version of the book. The issue is they're trying to sweep the original under the rug and eventually memoryhole it.
- throwaway675309 4y ago"You can just not read the new edition instead of pushing for and celebrating the silencing of its owners" The "owners" (who likely don't have a imaginative bone in their entire skeleton), if you'll pardon my vernacular, should stay the fuck out of the authors original work instead of mucking around with it, particularly inane changes like the removal of the word fat. And by pushing a new addition of the book while discontinuing the originals they seek to erase the authors original work. If anything this particular addition should have a large CliffsNotes banner on the cover.
- twoodfin 4y agoJoseph Conrad wrote favorably of colonialism?! Have you read Heart of Darkness?
- photochemsyn 4y agoWell, he said the British were not as bad as the Belgians, I guess... so he must be censored? It's all become satire piled on satire to the point I was entertaining the notion that this story was some kind of early April Fool's edition or something like that.
- ecshafer 4y agoThank God. Saying Conrad wrote favorably about Colonialism is so completely wrong and crazy some would say. Heart of Darkness was one of the most anti-colonial books of the 19th century.
- stuaxo 4y agoUgh. If it turns out these beloved stories become out of fashion because of stuff like this, so be it. Twisting it into something it isn't, to fit current tastes doesn't seem right.
- thewrongthinker 4y ago[dead]
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago>It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, once you take a position of empathy. It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, and it has nothing to do with empathy.
- boppo1 4y agoHow would you articulate what it has to do with, exactly? I agree with you but I find this topic too slippery to pin down (which is probably intentional).
- ok123456 4y agoI'm cringing at this unironic use of the word 'empathy'.
- nonethewiser 4y agoPeople really need to understand that empathy isn’t strictly good. I’m also surprised how little empathy people see in others. The call for more empathy tends to come off as very self centered and emotional. Childish, really.
- nonethewiser 4y ago[flagged]
- mensetmanusman 4y agoEmpathy isn’t usually associated with rewriting history, but rather with an urge to volunteer to help the homeless.
- tohnjitor 4y agoYou should take your own advice and not force your perspective on other people.
- stuaxo 4y ago"folks" is possible the most egerious of these as it's an American version of English and Roald Dahl, while not English was spoke in the English version of English, not the US version. "Everyone" or "people" would make more sense
- nonethewiser 4y agoOr, you know, ladies and gentleman
- egonschiele 4y agoI would guess the change was made because they felt ladies and gentlemen does not account for non-binary genders
- Quarrelsome 4y agodoes that matter when there don't appear to be any non-binary people in any of Roald Dahls works?
- type0 4y agothey forgot the queers so it should have been "folx" in double-non-binary
- gedy 4y agoGoodness how could he assume that before asking their personal pronouns? /s
- travisgriggs 4y agoUgh. I liked Matilda. But Steinbeck? Seriously? To each his own I guess. How Matilda would have been a fan of Steinback is beyond me. Much less Austin. Matilda would have been a fan of, er, uh, Dahl. And maybe Oz, Baum, Seuss, and Carroll. And any other author whose general vibe was "I kinda like to mess with the world." Definitely Orwell as she got older.
- oska 4y agoI think it's conceivable Matilda could have been a fan of Austen, but Steinbeck is a very long bow. British children still read mainly British authors and, when taking into account that Dahl is writing from his own experience as a child, that goes more than doubly for the times in which he grew up.
- throwaway049 4y agoSteinbeck was on the English lit syllabus when I went to school in Britain in the 90s.
- pixelesque 4y agoOf Mice and Men... Still remember it more than the Shakespeare we had to do...
- thebigspacefuck 4y agoTortilla Flat was also lit
- boppo1 4y agoI like Steinbeck and don't think that Matilda ought to be a Steinbeck fan. At least they didn't make her a fan of Plath.
- koolba 4y agoThe next revision will likely have her reading the 1619 Project.
- koolba 4y ago> In Fantastic Mr Fox a description of tractors, saying that “the machines were both black”, has been cut. In the new Dahl world, it seems, neither machines nor animals can be described with a colour. And removing any reference to color … for tractors.
- mozman 4y agoThis is astounding, I look forward to the time where these types of changes revert back to common sense.
- phist_mcgee 4y agoYou're going to be waiting for a while then.
- bentley 4y agoLengthy copyright is a big part of the problem here. Another recent censorship kerfuffle was over Dr. Seuss—one of the books in question was published when my grandmother was in diapers, yet the copyright holders have exclusive control today, more than three decades since Seuss’s death, and will retain it for another full decade from now.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ZiiS 4y agoI bet this is much more becase red tractors are easier to convey in the inevitable cartoon adaption. Or the hope John Deere will pay for them to be green.
- jbaber 4y agoIt was made into a stop motion movie by Wes Anderson.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- slothtrop 4y ago> not calling people crazy Wait until they realize that every single fucking insult in existence is equally "able-ist", by definition, or otherwise offensive in some way. Is the expectation that we slowly disallow insults in culture? No, it's going to be arbitrary whitelisting. Stupid (there I go being ableist). A change like this doesn't work as intended without fundamentally changing the narrative. If a character was insulting someone, they should still be insulting someone. Want the story to be different? Write a different fucking book.
- wyager 4y ago> Is the expectation that we slowly disallow insults in culture The current equilibrium seems to be that we're on a sort of vulgar treadmill. The process goes as follows: 1. Decide that previously formal/medical/technical word like "idiot" has developed too many colloquial negative connotations. 2. Invent new formal term, like "mentally retarded", and tell people that they have to use that instead, because the old term is now considered offensive. 3. Because connotation emerges from denotation, the new term develops precisely the same colloquial negative connotations. 4. Rinse and repeat.
- vore 4y agoThe euphemism treadmill is not even just a contemporary phenomenon: it's age-old and not even exclusive to English.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago[flagged]
- undersuit 4y ago>potato-head You'll need to adjust your language as the language has changed. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-can-count-to-potato https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-can-count-to-potato https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/acprjo/how_did_potato_become_an_insult_for_someone_whos/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/acprjo/how_did_p... Frankly any insult that attacks intelligence in any way is going to be ableist. Attack the merits or lack thereof of the argument.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- userbinator 4y agoAt least "bad" wasn't changed to "doubleplusungood", but it feels like that's not far away at this rate.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jojobas 4y agoExcept none of that is anywhere near good.
- josephcsible 4y agoI think GP meant that the list was good as a source of information about the changes, not that the changes themselves were good.
- wanderer2323 4y agoIn fact, the GGP should've called his list "nice", not "good".
- unixgoddess 4y agoI wonder when will they start editing Harry Potter, what with the Dursleys being caricature fatsos = villains.
- Applejinx 4y agoThat was my thought. Reading about all the changes had me looking askance at Roald Dahl: it's like, sheesh, somebody's far more edgy than they really needed to be. But that's who that guy was. That's what came out when he set out to be edgy. Removing it, you might as well write a different book. Misrepresenting who the guy is in order to sugar-coat him seems not the right approach, to me. So if you do that, you should DEFINITELY edit Harry Potter to get the terfliness out of it, simply because I'd like to see Rowling's reaction to that :) I don't think the oppressed need their enemies painted over and hidden. I think they need allies. A little more 'You have my bow." "And my axe!" "Let's just not mention Sauron k?", not really the same effectiveness.
- exolymph 4y ago> you should DEFINITELY edit Harry Potter to get the terfliness out of it Have you actually read Harry Potter? What are you referring to within the books? Rowling was a progressive darling for years until she expressed disallowed sentiments outside of her fiction writing.
- alexvoda 4y agoNot quite. Harry Potter is a remarkably pro-status-quo story.
- acdha 4y ago> Rowling was a progressive darling for years until she expressed disallowed sentiments outside of her fiction writing. Really? Talents based on heredity, the portrayals of the Dursleys as fat, the renditions of other cultures, the questions of whether the goblin bankers echoed anti-Semitic stereotypes, the domestic slavery, etc. got criticism for years. She got some kudos eventually for saying Dumbledore was gay but that was late and never in the books, so it seems pretty minor to hang that theory on.
- RobinL 4y ago25 years ago my secondary school English teacher told us that he didn't read Dahl to his kids because of how it equated ugly and fat with bad. Every time I see this trope it reminds me: I think he was right. The books are wonderful in other ways. This makes me more likely to read the them to my kids
- tablespoon 4y ago> But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck No one will read this, but I believe the authors Matilda "liked" to read have been judged to be politically incorrect. And we wouldn't want to give sensitive young mind a reason to look them up. /s
- type0 4y ago> using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" For anyone curious to why the word "folks" is chosen, here's great explanation: https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-folks/ https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-folks/