5 ms·
Of every change the ones to Augustus Gloop not being called "enormously fat" and instead being called "enormous" are the most jarring as his story is a moral pa
by faeriechangling 4y ago
Of every change the ones to Augustus Gloop not being called "enormously fat" and instead being called "enormous" are the most jarring as his story is a moral parable about the dangers of gluttony. Even if you think such moral parables are wrong, the phrasing change isn't simply just aesthetic, it's fundamentally changing the story's narrative.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- giantg2 4y agoWhat was the intent of this change? "Enormously fat" is a subset of "fat". Ostensibly, this would insult more people since there are more fat people than there are enormously fat people.
- faeriechangling 4y agoI edited quickly since I misspoke. To be specific - they edited things like “But Augustus was deaf to everything except the call of his enormous stomach” to “But Augustus was ignoring everything”. It's not just the description of Augustus they toned down, they even literally removed lines from the book which explains he was motivated by hunger.
- Dalewyn 4y agoChanging "deaf to everything" to "ignoring everything" is an affront to English education. A significant portion of my learning English came from reading books, and now that literature is being dumbed down, simplified, and sterilized, for no reason other than going woke. Education for today's kids and the coming generations are going to be an even bigger shitshow than anything any of us ever saw in our times.
- sensanaty 4y agoWow, that reworked sentence doesn't even carry a hint of the original meaning, it basically rewrites the character entirely...
- nickff 4y agoThey removed the word "fat", not the word "enormous".
- dehrmann 4y ago> Even if you think such moral parables are wrong Perhaps it would be best to not read a book with them.
- newaccount2021 4y ago[dead]
- PKop 4y agoYou're making a general argument against revisionism but you seem to miss the point that the specific critique of gluttony / being fat / "fat shaming" is an aspect of the current morality that is imposing itself in many corners of culture. It is forbidden to say being fat is unhealthy, undesirable or to pathologize it at all.
- ComputerGuru 4y ago> It is forbidden to say being fat is unhealthy, undesirable or to pathologize it at all. Does that seem sensible?
- xupybd 4y agoAs someone who is fat and unhealthy I don't think it is. You're not rejecting me to tell me I need to lose some weight, you're suggesting you care about my well being. I don't understand the modern idea that you must celebrate every part of a person to love them.
- hugh-avherald 4y agoI suspect it went something like this: There were studies into shaming of overweight individuals concluded it was a poor method for weight loss. This mutated into the idea that anti-shaming must be good for health and the idea that we should not implicitly shame fat people in general. In general, I suspect these kinds of cultural phenomena generally begin by fairly mundane scientific observations being processed through a game of telephone within academia.
- Izkata 4y agoIt combined with a corruption of HAES: Originally it was "Health At Every Size", as in, an encouraging message that you can always improve your health no matter how big you are (which a lot of people need because when you start exercising you can end up gaining weight before losing anything, because you're building muscle faster than you're losing fat). But at some point it became understood as "Healthy At Every Size" which people took to mean your size doesn't impact your health.
- Animats 4y agoLast year, it was the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.[1] [1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/19487821/thomas-the-tank-engine-fat-controller/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/19487821/thomas-the-tank-engine-...
- twothamendment 4y agoI started reading examples from the article to my wife and she brought up the fat controller. When my son was young we watched all the older, UK Thomas episodes on YouTube. We preferred the narrator and the fat controller to the US version.
- oblio 4y agoOn the other hand: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressive-authoritarian-soul-of-thomas-the-tank-engine-and-friends https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressiv...
- Animats 4y agoHave You been Really Useful today? Awdry and Dahl were from the days when men were men, women were women, and the sun never set on the British Empire. That's going to upset some people.
- oblio 4y ago> and the sun never set on the British Empire "because God doesn't trust Brits in the dark". See, I can play the witty quotes game, too. Not that I added much of value with this comment.
- undersuit 4y agoHe should be called by his real name, Sir Topham Hatt.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]