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I am certain I am not the only one who has seen this given that the story hit Drudge a few days ago. Now lets see if people will get all worked up over it. Not the excising of a word but the fact that this guy can claim he is a Twain Scholar after gutting one of his signature works. Disgusted is the mildest term I think of to describe what I think of it. New edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the N-word, Huckleberry Finn loses the 'nigger' he loves, thanks to a publisher's ethnic cleansing.
I have seen this all over the news as of late, and to the editor's credit his motivation is to try to get schools to adopt his book since they were not allowing students to read the regular version. As a Twain scholar, he simply wants students to read Twain.My thoughts are that students should be able to read it as it was written. It changes the nature of the book when one inserts a different word for one that is generally considered to be offensive nowadays. My real complaint isn't really with the editor, but instead with schools that don't let students read the original book because of some words in it. I could handle the book when I read it, and many other students have been able to as well. Schools also allow students to learn about other offensive things – so what's the big deal with Huckleberry Finn?Really, society has given the word “nigger” far too much stature. Yes, it is a crude and hurtful word to call someone, but it probably shouldn't be considered the “worst word in the world” the way it is today. If you took a poll I imagine that many people would think that using this word was a worse crime than doing something like robbing a convenience store.
Hopefully the free market will work and this will fail.Now kids, don't read classic literature but it's OK to watch Family Guy, Glee, The Simpsons, and all those teenage whores singing on MTV.
Both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were required reading in my Junior English class in the Rural Oklahoma High School I attended. Come to think of it, so was Catcher in the Rye.
Soon, they are going to replace every instance of the word ?rape? in The Color Purple with ?unfortunate sexual happening.? ??? (source: The Onion)Seriously, I don't get the usefulness to change the work of an author (writer, painter (eg Daniele da Volterra “Il Braghettone” (“the breeches maker”) with Michelangelo's Last Judgement) for any reason. That's unjustifiable.
Seriously, I don't get the usefulness to change the work of an author (writer, painter (eg Daniele da Volterra “Il Braghettone” (“the breeches maker”) with Michelangelo's Last Judgement) for any reason. That's unjustifiable.
I agree with you 100%. It is no different than if we are forced to emplace and use memory holes. Regardless of how hard they try the past stubbornly refuses to change. That is the good thing about liberals, their reaction to truth is the same one that roaches have to light.
Hmmm…. for some reason it makes me think of the history books used in the public schools in Japan… the ones that offer quite a revised vision of the Japanese Empire's involvement in World War II, doesn't mention Nanking, Bataan, etc.It's much easier to get outraged when it is another culture, but when it's our own we all tend to just go “tsk, tsk, tsk, what a shame, oh well…. I wonder who'll be on American Idol or Dancing With The Stars tonight”?
When you consider how often the bible has been edited to fit the times it's not a big surprise. I don't agree with it, not only because the vocabulary used by authors conveys the genres of the times, but also because failing to give students a chance to analyze it makes them ignorant. One question, though; after seeing the language standards in North America drop due to immigration and educational reforms, what percentage of students comprehend literature in its original format?In Asia it only makes sense to rewrite these books so that second language readers can understand the plots without the advanced vocabulary, but I wonder if it might be necessary to start doing that in North America?
One question, though; after seeing the language standards in North America drop due to immigration and educational reforms, what percentage of students comprehend literature in its original format?
That is the question now, isn't it? I would add to this that changes made under the influence of political correctness have increased the gap. For example, nowadays the use of the masculine gender in pronouns when referring to both sexes may be considered “sexist” by some and therefore impermissible, but this would not have been the intent in texts from hundreds of years ago or less. I imagine that the student who reads an historical text that uses the masculine pronoun in an all-inclusive manner will think the author was sexist, and therefore morally blameworthy to some degree. This likely would have some influence on that students subsequent studies.
