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Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#561

Post by throwanem »

narrator wrote: post #287
throwanem wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll save everyone here the read: according to Howard, the Jews are behind it all. Of course.

The funding was all done through charitable foundations of various billionaires. Last I checked foundations don't have an ethnicity.

No, but as a sibling commenter accurately notes, your boy Scott sure is anxious to talk about how Jewish he claims everyone involved happens to be.

I'd say "wonder why that is?", but everyone here knows exactly why that is. He's not fooling anybody, and neither are you.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#562

Post by lxe »

Hmm I thought this was going to be removing something profoundly out of touch or racist, but instead it's weird minor revisionism, like changing Kipling to Steinbeck for some reason, and updating various benign phrases with their modern equivalents. Why not leave things written in the past the way they are?

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#563

Post by josephg »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #531
josephg wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah; I don’t know why it’s taken people so long to realise this. I know it seems to people on Twitter that everyone is on twitter, but that’s really not true. About 10% of people in the USA use Twitter daily - which is a huge number of eyeballs. But that still leaves the remaining 90% of people choosing instead to enjoy our short time on this planet. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the outrage over Hogwarts…

The thing with hogwarts legacy is that the minorities who are affected are like 1% of the population. Even if 100% of them loudly proclaimed anything anywhere on any social media platform, it would barely affect anything simply because they’re so small compared to the rest of the population. This is in the same sense that only a minority of the population are severely immunocompromised to the point where Covid is sti…

I think I disagree with both of your points:

> There’s simply no possible way for a minority of such a small size to make any waves happen anywhere, not even on anything as small as a popular video game.

There's an old quote - "Never assume a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. Its the only thing that ever has."

The radical left - for all that they're championing the rights of a small group of people, has been very effective at kicking up a fuss about diversity, inclusion and trans rights. It doesn't feel like a tiny fringe movement:

- Apparently most researchers and professors at a lot of universities now need to make "diversity and inclusion statements". Stanford is banning a lot of language. So is Google and other big companies.

- Authors like Roald Dahl are having their work retroactively edited to "meet modern norms".

- The pushback against this stuff is becoming a major rallying call for America's right. Now the american conservatives accomplished most of their big policy objectives in most states (concealed carry, banned abortions, etc). What can they use to "energize the base"? Fighting this stuff is being turned into a tool to get conservatives to the polls. (Source: The economist podcast.)

I'm not sure what the lived experience has become for trans people - but the fight for trans rights (as part of the fight for diversity and inclusion) seems to have made massive waves all over the place.

> The thing with hogwarts legacy is that the minorities who are affected are like 1% of the population.

The only people affected by your decision to buy Hogwarts Legacy are the developers involved. I promise you, JK Rowling won't notice the extra 50 cents in her pocket if you buy, or don't buy the game.

If you want to support trans people, do that by supporting them. The lives of trans people are unaffected by your steam purchasing decisions.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#564

Post by mindcrime »

DanHulton wrote: post #121
aflag wrote: post #113

I'm a non-native English speaker. What's wrong with screeching?

"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative. You generally wouldn't say a man was "screeching", not unless you also wanted to imply he was effeminate. By avoiding the word, you avoid insinuating the target's gender is part of the issue, and/or avoid insinuating that the target is effeminate when they "should not" be, i.e. you avoid homophobia.

Interestingly, while I get what you're saying - and can agree that "screeching" probably is at least slightly gendered when applied to humans - in my experience I've more often encountered "screeching" applied to non-human entities, like birds. Enough so that I would not automatically make any connection to the use of the word "screeching" as specifically being a gendered derogative aimed at women (although context would dictate a lot about the interpretation of any specific case of course).

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#565

Post by clippablematt »

mandmandam wrote: post #175
Aflynn50 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adults don't, but children might. These books arn't consumed by people who are particularly aware of the cultural context of the ear in which they were written. Things are going to very much taken at face value. A lot of things have changed in the last 60 years.

We gonna edit all books so kids don't take the crazy parts at face value? Swift? Dickens? The Bible? The Torah? There have been thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children's books written in the last sixty years. Leave the classics the fuck alone, especially when the authors are unable to defend their work.

All of your examples, bible etc, have all been repeatedly edited for different cultures and age groups.

People act like this is the end of Dahls legacy, yet his stories have probably been discussed more in the past 24 hours than the past few years combined.

I recommend the book Graveyard clay on the death on languages, and how the dead are still as chatty as the living- in many ways the dead are harder to silence.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#566

Post by bee_rider »

josephcsible wrote: post #527
bee_rider wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In current American English, “female” has shifted to usually being an adjective, woman is a noun. Referring to people by noun-ing one of the adjectives that describes them is something considered reductive by a chunk of the population. If someone is a fan of “female” as a noun: I’m not going to change your mind. I get that changing language is annoying sometimes. I’m pointing out that “female” as a noun does bother s…

"[first thing] does bother some people, [second thing] only bothers people if they [condition]." That phrasing (in particular " does " vs. "only") makes it sound like being bothered by the first thing is inherently justified but being bothered by the second thing isn't. And why do you specify the condition that will cause the second thing to bother the people but leave it ambiguous for the first thing?

That the former is unconditional while the latter is conditional is simply an accurate description of the situation.

I don’t think describing the conditional thing as conditional implies any judgement.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#567

Post by loeg »

dboat wrote: post #514
lotsofpulp wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either I am completely out of touch, or this comment is nonsense. A screech is a high pitched sound, nothing more unless otherwise indicated.

No, the person you replied to was correct (for my region and presumably his). My knowledge of the term mirrors his and I'm kind of disappointed to see so many people asserting there is no common, derogatory, gendered use of the term just because they are unfamiliar with it. I see a lot of people with no knowledge or experience with this common usage. That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are…

> I'm kind of disappointed to see so many people asserting there is no common, derogatory, gendered use of the term just because they are unfamiliar with it.

Maybe worth reconsidering if your understanding of the term is truly "common."

> That's fine, but it's arrogant to assume things you don't know are nonsense.

It also seems pretty arrogant to assert you know better than everyone else.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#568

Post by trafficante »

jquery wrote: post #484
DanHulton wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative. You generally wouldn't say a man was "screeching", not unless you also wanted to imply he was effeminate. By avoiding the word, you avoid insinuating the target's gender is part of the issue, and/or avoid insinuating that the target is effeminate when they "should not" be, i.e. you avoid homophobia.

>"Screeching" in english (at least North American english) is typically a gendered derogative. When HN can't tolerate such an obviously true statement such as this, yet plenty of dog-whistles supporting homophobia and racism and transphobia in this thread stay upvoted, it tells me I probably shouldn't be spending time here anymore. I don't know if I've changed or the community has changed. Probably a bit of both. May…

Until I saw your comment, I interpreted the downvoting as people taking issue with the astonishing lack of self awareness and bizarrely neurotic hypothetical purity spiral at the end.

IE: Describing a straight male as shrill might make passersby assume he’s abnormal and abnormal men are viewed as homosexual and it would be really awful if you accidentally did a homophobia so stop using the word shrill.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#569

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

monkeywork wrote: post #259
russdill wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be a hard choice with young children. I grew up watching Christmas Story every year. My son is two and I'm very hesitant to continue that tradition when he's a bit older. I don't want him to think that mocking people for their accents is something to be encouraged. It'd be nice to have a version of the movie where that scene is modified or redubbed because the movie is a creative treasure. Of course, once he r…

>It can be a hard choice with young children. I grew up watching Christmas Story every year. My son is two and I'm very hesitant to continue that tradition when he's a bit older. I don't want him to think that mocking people for their accents is something to be encouraged. It'd be nice to have a version of the movie where that scene is modified or redubbed because the movie is a creative treasure. I can understand wh…

This ^^^

These situations are perfect for having actual, meaningful conversations with your kids. Not only will you clearly articulate expectations to your kids, but you'll grow closer.

Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books

#570

Post by gedy »

nonethewiser wrote: post #353
stuaxo wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Or, you know, ladies and gentleman

Goodness how could he assume that before asking their personal pronouns? /s
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