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Censored Huck Finn to be published: Pub. Weekly

2

23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
According to Publishers Weekly, a new edition of the Mark Twain classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is coming out which will be sanitized to remove the "n word" and other words that today's readers no longer have the intelligence to handle in their historical context.

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/01/03/huckleberry-finn-n-word-censor-edit

It's a slippery slope. Up until 20 years ago "crippled" was a perfectly acceptable word. So was "deaf". No longer. And here in Canada you get frowned at if you use the word "Indian" to refer to anyone who isn't from southern Asia. Where will it stop?

And although this article doesn't go into this aspect, you can bet this sort of revisionism will be far easier in the e-book era. Orwell was spot on; he was just 25 years out on the date.

I just wish people would leave history the f--k alone.

Alex
 
Those without the intelligence to handle those words don't have the intelligence to read the book anyway.

Abridged versions of Huck Finn have been around for ages, and I'm sure that most of them were similarly toned down. The surprising thing here is that anyone would go to the trouble of censoring the full text.
 
That's a great idea. People are too stupid to understand the historical context, so let's remove the word completely so they don't have to worry about ever learning the context, thus people will always be too stupid to understand. :rolleyes:

Crap like this pisses me off. I'm too young to be jaded and cynical about society, damn it.
 
Would you expect anything less in a world where you can get fired or sent to sensitivity training for correctly using the word "niggardly"? And apparently one can only use the "n word" when you're busting caps in the police or slapping your bitches around.

Political correctness is one of the greatest weaknesses we have.
 
I worked as a relay operator for years, and not once was there an issue with the word "deaf". We used the word as part of our announcement. "Hello, this is the (Insert phone company name here) relay service for the deaf and hard of hearing."

As for Huck Finn. In today's world it is not surprising.
 
And while they're at it, why not repaint the Mona Lisa to make her more attractive, or re-write Hamlet to make it less depressing?

You don't mess with great art, people.


Morons. :rolleyes:
 
It's pretty sad how little faith they have in people to be able to handle the content. We read the book in 10th grade and even as teenagers we weren't giggling about the language or going around using all the words we read. We were taught that it was a different time with a different set of rules about language and that was enough for us to understand. How stupid do they think people are?
 
Gaith said:
. . . Abridged versions of Huck Finn have been around for ages, and I'm sure that most of them were similarly toned down. The surprising thing here is that anyone would go to the trouble of censoring the full text.
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As a child, I had an abridged edition of Huckleberry Finn that substituted "Negro" for the taboo word. At least the publishers of this new bowdlerized version ought to preface it with a disclaimer -- something like: "This classic work of literature has been altered from its original form. It has been cleansed of certain words and references that the publishers think will upset and anger today's readers, because they are too dumb to understand the context of the time in which the book was written."

Jesus friggin' Christ. What's next -- Moby Dick without any references to the killing of whales? It's environmentally wrong and immoral, you know!

Professor Zoom said:
Aragorn said:
^ I can't answer that, but you have heard the term "hearing impaired," right?
Click to expand...

That means deaf, right?
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Eh? Come again?
 
Spot's Meow said:
It's pretty sad how little faith they have in people to be able to handle the content. We read the book in 10th grade and even as teenagers we weren't giggling about the language or going around using all the words we read. We were taught that it was a different time with a different set of rules about language and that was enough for us to understand. How stupid do they think people are?
Click to expand...
Yea I know. The world's become way too politically correct. The book itself is a product of its time. And if the content is too much for some people... then should be allowed to excuse themselves from reading it.
 
Jesus friggin' Christ. What's next -- Moby Dick without any references to the killing of whales? It's environmentally wrong and immoral, you know!
Click to expand...
No, but the title is being changed to "Moby Male Genitalia"
 
I just posted this on Yahoo's story about this:

How dare we insult the memory of those who endured the use of these words and not only survived, but in some cases overcame them to succeed, by taking them out of a book in which their use was to point out how horrendous they were?

We are making ourselves feel better, not by our own work, but by trashing a work of genius. And then have the nerve to use it in so called music and those so called artist make fortunes.

Weep for our future for we are whitewashing our past.
 
ancientone51 said:
I just posted this on Yahoo's story about this:

How dare we insult the memory of those who endured the use of these words and not only survived, but in some cases overcame them to succeed, by taking them out of a book in which their use was to point out how horrendous they were?
Click to expand...

And that's the real tragedy. The word is not used gratuitously, but is central to the major point of the book. Huck struggles with his conscience to see Jim as a human being despite the attitudes of the time, symbolized by a horrible slur that was used not only casually but primarily.

I'm against santization in general, but this is even worse since it changes the essential meaning of the entire story.
 
What's really funny in this atmosphere of thin-skinned oversensitive extreme political correctness is how increasingly intolerant and hateful people are toward anyone who thinks differently than them. How dare you say something that I disagree with, so I hope you get fired or die! Once upon a time there was healthy debate and agreeing to disagree. Now days, radio shock jocks have more regular listeners that hate them than actual fans.
 
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