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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

#641

Post by oblio »

ecshafer wrote: post #481
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…

I have seen this a few times even as a dev, where people put way to much focus on twitter. I think its because there is a class of people that use twitter and they think twitter is really really important. But some random person on twitter tweets "@company x is bad" and its taken much more seriously than say an email, slack message, or whatever. Most people don't use twitter ever, most people on twitter rarely use tw…

Journalists are constantly on Twitter. That's why it's "important", because Twitter is a hobby for people writing news.

It's a kind of "movie about movie making or movie makers wins Oscar".

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

#642

Post by dang »

AlbertCory wrote: post #136
dang wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On HN, we go by article quality rather than site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... . The current article, I would say, easily clears the bar for interestingness on HN, despite its culture war aspect. Interestingness is the thing we care about here ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... ). (Also, the submitter did a fine job of rewriting the title to be…

Do we have any transparency (i.e. a single doc) about your site guidelines? Which ones are downgraded? What about flagging? When does a comment flagged by a user get unflagged, if that happens?

There's no single doc. We keep https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html at the level of principles, not practices, because trying to compile a complete doc would be nightmarishly long and then no one would read it (except maybe the litigious types looking for loopholes). It's for similar reasons that we don't publish a full moderation log.

There is tons of information about basically everything we do embedded in my moderation comments but one has to use HN Search to find it (that's why I link to HN search so often). One of these years I might try to wrangle a bunch of those into a bunch of essay-style commentaries, if only because they would be easier to link to and would lighten the load of always having to explain the same things.

We're transparent in the sense of always trying to answer questions, though.

Comments by users can get manually unflagged by mods but I don't think there's a software way to do that. Flagkilled posts, though, can get unkilled by user vouches (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch).

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

#643

Post by gsinclair »

ec109685 wrote: post #573
tptacek wrote: post #100

I'd be interested in hearing the most credible/reputable sources speaking out in favor of these changes. I've exclusively seen commentators dunking on this (rightfully so), across the political spectrum. To be clear: I'm wondering if we can find specific people speaking up for this, not an analysis of whose side of the culture war is most culpable for it.

There’s an early chapter in Charlie and the Glass Elevator that feels like it was written by a racist 11 year old, with the idiot president making fun of every ethnicity in the most banal way possible. I skipped it when reading the story to my children.

That book always seemed really out there in the Dahl pantheon. I loved reading it as a kid.

I too would skip reading such material to my child. But it wouldn’t bother me for the child to read it themself when they are older. It’s a funny psychological thing: reading aloud to someone risks carrying some perceived level of approval. A child reading it themself can toss the ideas around in their head, take time to process it, question it etc. and surely they can tell that the prose is whimsical and not serious.

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

#644

Post by gd1 »

agentwiggles wrote: post #47

Wow. This is so gross. I was a bit put out by the Dr. Seuss controversy a few years back, but at least in those cases, they just stopped printing the books (and, to be fair, the caricatures of various ethnic groups in If I Ran The Zoo are pretty bad). It feels much more disturbing, though, to just silently update the language in the books to be more in line with modern sensibilities. Dahl was a man of his time, and a…

[dead]

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

#645

Post by tomp »

ec109685 wrote: post #573
tptacek wrote: post #100

I'd be interested in hearing the most credible/reputable sources speaking out in favor of these changes. I've exclusively seen commentators dunking on this (rightfully so), across the political spectrum. To be clear: I'm wondering if we can find specific people speaking up for this, not an analysis of whose side of the culture war is most culpable for it.

There’s an early chapter in Charlie and the Glass Elevator that feels like it was written by a racist 11 year old, with the idiot president making fun of every ethnicity in the most banal way possible. I skipped it when reading the story to my children.

Surely it’s not racist to make fun of every ethnicity?

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

#646

Post by gd1 »

jonahx wrote: post #238
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. Is it though? A modified version of the scene seems like a dishonest solution to a problem that has good, straightforward solutions: - Don't show them (if its a conversation you don't want to have yet) - Show them and then discuss the scene Norms change time... different people think different things are ok... these are lessons children need to learn just like any other.

[dead]

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

#647

Post by oblio »

Animats wrote: post #465
faeriechangling wrote: post #209

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.

Last year, it was the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.[1] [1] https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/19487821/thomas-the-tank-engine-...

On the other hand:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/the-repressiv...

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

#648

Post by tomp »

Dalewyn wrote: post #479
ComputerGuru wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is forbidden to say being fat is unhealthy, undesirable or to pathologize it at all. Does that seem sensible?

There was a time, back about five hundred to a thousand years ago, when being fat was a positive trait because it was a social sign that you had the means to surplus nourishment. But whether it's acceptable to be fat or not, it's ultimately a social measurement that changes like the wind. Objectively and biologically, being fat is not good for one's health. Period. There is no room for argument here. Being fat is unh…

It was a positive trait in my country (Slovenia) after WWII! My grandparents’ generation! (Same reason)

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

#649

Post by mongol »

oska wrote: post #558
indigodaddy wrote: post #494

Man I hope they don’t alter any of his adult short story collections

A man's car breaks down in the desert; he's rescued and taken back to his rich rescuer's oasis household. The rich man has a beautiful daughter and equally beautiful wife. A female sneaks into his room over two successive nights and they enjoy wild and ecstatic sex before she sneaks out again, identity unknown. The man cannot figure out whether it's the wife or daughter he has slept with and he's dying to know. On le…

Yeah, but that would never happen unless a more inclusive title instead of "Switch Bitch" is invented. Or, in the words of Chat GPT:

"Switch Bitch" is a title of a book by Roald Dahl, which is a collection of four short stories. The term "switch bitch" is a play on words that has a vulgar connotation, and it generally refers to a woman who is promiscuous and willing to engage in sexual activity with multiple partners. However, it's important to note that using this term to describe someone is considered disrespectful and offensive, and it's not an appropriate way to refer to anyone.

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

#650

Post by lencastre »

double2helix wrote: post #606

I'm a gay man and I think we are going to far with this PC nonsense. I had a hard time growing up in the 90s knowing I was different and being tormented by my peers, so I'm happy to see gay "normalized" in current pop culture more because I think it teaches the younger generation to accept themselves and others. However I feel that it's going to far, for example I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a t…

“I think editing classic books is wrong even if it is covering up something like hate or bigotry. History forgotten is history bound to repeat itself.”

I’m afraid that earlier editions will be unrecognizable, and/or signal your values, and/or create such backlash emerging a new culture war

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