Huck loses the n-word
It was only a matter of time, I guess. A new edition of Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn will be coming out minus the offending n-word, which will be replaced by the term “slave.”
In related news, the same edition will eliminate the word “Injun.” I can’t find a report of what term will replace it; perhaps nothing.
Alan Gribben, a Twain scholar who is behind the new Bowdlerized version, believes he had to change Huck in order to save him from oblivion; the PC police have spearheaded multiple and successful drives to ban the book, all because of the n-word. The publisher of the new version calls the revised terminology “less hurtful, less controversial,” but it’s certainly controversial among Twain literature lovers.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how at this point children’s minds are deemed too sensitive to withstand the barrage of the n-word in a classic book, even when the thrust of the book is to show the innate humanity and worthiness of the person in question. But at the same time their ears are not deemed too delicate to be exposed to a steady diet of the n-word in rap music. And most of this latter-day use of the word is by black people themselves, in songs that are often offensive in many other ways as well. It’s enough to make your head spin.
It is beyond ironic, it is asinine.
Next the PC crowd will ban the term “black holes” because of such ignorance. Recalling that some counsilman in Texas was offended by the use of the term used to describe a wasteful project that kept attracting more funding.
It’s sad, very sad. And without banning the use of the “n” word in other forms of entertainment, e.g., rap music, children get no context of history and the history of literature and this word. All they are left with is a censored version of Twain’s writings and the uncensored version of modern music. How will they know what the “n” word meant, why it is hurtful and the hypocrisy of how it is now permitted to be thrown around by a self-selected few?
The obvious question is how long before “n-word” gets ousted? A proliferation in its use should make liberal’s heads explode upon discovering it’s become more associated with the original meaning than the old less recognisable phrase.
I well remember the following fiasco:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/jan99/district27.htm
Williams Aide Resigns in Language Dispute
By Yolanda Woodlee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 27, 1999; Page B1
The director of D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams’s constituent services office resigned after being accused of using a racial slur, the mayor’s office said yesterday.
David Howard, head of the Office of Public Advocate, said he used the word “niggardly” in a Jan. 15 conversation about funding with two employees.
“I used the word ‘niggardly’ in reference to my administration of a fund,” Howard said in a written statement yesterday. “Although the word, which is defined as miserly, does not have any racial connotations, I realize that staff members present were offended by the word.
“I immediately apologized,” Howard said. ” . . . I would never think of making a racist remark. I regret that the word I did use offended anyone.”
When Howard, who is white, noticed the reaction to his use of the word, he apologized to his three-member staff, which is made up of two blacks and another white. It is unclear which two employees he was addressing when he used the word.
Soon after the remark was uttered, the rumor mill started churning that Howard had used the word “nigger.”
Howard said he has received numerous telephone calls since Jan. 15 from people in the community who had heard “I had made a racist remark . . . [which is] in fact unquotable here.”
The Barnhard Dictionary of Etymology traces the origins of “niggardly” to the 1300s and the words nig and nigon, meaning miser, in Middle English. It also notes possible earlier origins in languages including Old Icelandic, Old English and Middle High German. There is no mention of any racial connotation.
Howard said the rumor that he had used a racial slur “has severely compromised my effectiveness as the District’s Public Advocate and in the best interest of my office, I resigned,” effective Monday.
[ snip ]
I’m hanging on to my old editions, thank you very much. Bloody liberal idiots. Gah, I’m SICK of them.
SteveH: How long before it gets ousted? No time soon (in my humble opinion). Take a ride on a NYC subway in the morning and you will hear the “n” word thrown around (very loudly) by black and Hispanic teenagers. It is actually pretty sad because everyone else on the train (all races, all classes) just shake their heads and try to ignore them, knowing that in 10 minutes when we’re all at our respective jobs if we said the same exact thing we could be terminated. They are absolutely clueless and striking the word from Twain is only making it worse. I guess it is mitigated because most of them will never read the book. Too bad there isn’t an influential black man today who could step-up and embarrass those who continue to use this word with pride.
Twain is definitely not the only pc corrected text – think of the updated and inclusive revisions to Christian religious texts. How many congregations slogged through a purified “God Rest Ye Merry Folk” at Christmas services, for instance?
If texts are manipulated to prevent tender-hearted readers or enlightened worshippers from fainting or bursting into tears, fine. But add an endnote or footnote for each change which explains why the wording was changed, who changed the wording, and when the deed was done. The crime begins in trying to make it seem as though the “helpful” revisions are the original texts.
“Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, who has condemned both the party and the TV show, stood at a lectern and repeatedly tried to appease the crowd. She read aloud each of the demands from the Black Student Union and stated “done” loudly after several. Among the demands she agreed to were providing solid funding for the African-American studies minor and ethnic studies programs.”
If you flip a coin, whether or not it comes up heads or tails is immaterial to whether or not you it was a coin you flipped. Discrimination, whether it is affirmative or negative, is still discrimination.
“how at this point children’s minds are deemed too sensitive to withstand the barrage of the n-word in a classic book”
Yes, but teaching those same children about anal penetration is regarded as a moral duty.
I am reminded of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia whose publisher once sent owners of the volume directions to remove the page with the “Beria” entry and replace it with a page on the “Bering Strait.” Beria, naturally, had just suffered an untimely encounter with a bullet.
So what next? I just finished a review of “For Jobs and Freedom” (labor and African Americans). The book, by a prominent labor historian includes numerous quotes containing the n-word. Should I expect something in the mail?
What nonsense!
Pitiful. It makes me want to go out and buy a copy of every original edition.
Self-censorship is the worst kind. The individual who self-censors his speech, and ultimately his thoughts, has surrendered.
/Oh darn, I said “his”. I’ll report to the re-education camp forthwith.
“I immediately apologized,” Howard said. ” . . . I would never think of making a racist remark. I regret that the word I did use offended anyone.”
He apologized for their ignorance? They should have apologized to him. That, and invested in a dictionary.
And we don’t think it can happen here…
Today Germans are still learning the things that were changed back then.
When reading below think of what happened as a method to change history, and so change the future, and don’t focus so much on WHAT they changed, but that they did and people let them and so what that then did to the future…
How Hitler and the Nazis tried to rob Christ from Christmas
http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/133804
its the idea that you can put in a new wall by changing each “brick in the wall” one at a time…
that a single ant can move a mountain of sand one grain by one grain, and all that would be required is time
what is a country and a nation and a society?
A group of people with a shared history, culture, and beliefs. What America is, is not a place.
Its a context and state of mind created from history, culture, and beliefs. confuse and destroy that, and you destroy the meaning.
Its what all the innocent clubs, conscious raising, pc culture stuff, etc is all about. Gleichshaltung, the aligning of EVERYTHING with the ideology.
I explained it so that it can be seen, that books, magazines, schools, businesses, military are all being aligned to the same ideas and thinking.
one grain of sand at a time.
after all, how bad or nasty is just one grain of sand?
surely you cant protest if we are allowed to move one grain of sand at a time, can you?
and certainly there is no real harm if we are allowed to change words here and there…
its editing
its abridging
its re-imagineering
This is not even a triumph of PC; it is a triumph of stupidity.
Huckleberry Finn is one of the most profoundly anti-slavery books ever written. No one can read the conversation between Tom and his aunt about the river boat boiler explosion with any understanding at all and not understand Twain’s revulsion at regarding blacks as non-persons. And by removing ‘nigger’, the transformation of Huck (and the implicit hope for transformation in others) and the extent of his love for Jim will be lost.
I am reminded of the title of the excellent book by John Ellis: ‘Literature Lost’.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how at this point children’s minds are deemed too sensitive to withstand the barrage of the n-word in a classic book
Check out what GSLEN has given out and had available for young minds…
its not that children are too sensitive
its that they are aligning everything so that what they want seems more real as its reinforced all over.
shape the language you shape how people think or dont think…
But at the same time their ears are not deemed too delicate to be exposed to a steady diet of the n-word in rap music. And most of this latter-day use of the word is by black people themselves, in songs that are often offensive in many other ways as well.
It’s enough to make your head spin
not at all, as i know the history and the reasons why, while most people try to understand and give reasons without history… which turns what actually happened into some kind of false explanation for why X is Y…
Rap music is homage to H Rap Brown, and his poetry and his biography Die Ni**er die… he is now Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
so of course its ok in rap music to say such things.
and its ok to have that music, since its the authentic black revolutionary music. which is why it has its themes, and promotes what it does culturally.
and the people who started the music craze and were the earliest giants, like tupac, were connected too.
dont think so? Tupac Shakurs mom and dad were who in terms of that organization?
How can you not sing the music of the revolution and say that any of it is tainted and not good for children?
that would be like, like, saying that singing Yankee doodle is bad for an American! (check out what that meant then).
As a term Doodle first appeared in the early seventeenth century, and is thought to derive from the Low German dudel or dé¶del, meaning “fool” or “simpleton”. The Macaroni wig was an extreme fashion in the 1770s and became contemporary slang for foppishness. The implication of the verse was therefore probably that the Yankees were so unsophisticated that they thought simply sticking a feather in a cap would make them the height of fashion
most of what is talked about has a history…
a history having nothing to do with the made up musings of people trying to explain things in society without that history…
AND if you want to know how it came that we have to worry about offending anyone, all you have to do is know feminism history… and how the “reasonable person” concept was changed to facilitate hostile environment and more harassment cases being prosecuted to judgments.
a REASONABLE woman might think that a man being a man is ok, and that he can like what he likes as she does, and so forth…
but to prosecute people for things like “hostile gaze”, hostile environment (created by a calendar), etc… you had to change it..
no longer would ‘oppressed’ sensitive women have to tolerate what others tolerated and found inoffensive. they now had a right to recompense for the worlds offense to their sensibilities. and if they believe what they think they believe, even if it isn’t, like with niggardly above as an example, it doesn’t matter.
and the rest, was the out flowering of the premises of that tweak to law… it changed how free we were, put a clamp on us, and created huge burden millstones for business…
hey, thats not the only thing McKinnon (you know, the constitution lawyer who said feminism and communism and socialism is the same thing and that that was what they were working for), and others tweaked…
after all, the Germans pioneered the use of the disparate impact argument to prove that Jews were cheating the people, as they were only a small percentage of the population and had disproportionate wealth and property and capitalist businesses…
so that’s another tool that was copied, repackaged, and fomented by innocent clubs…
now one didn’t have to actually show that there was discrimination, one could mathematically prove it by the outcome…
if Jesse Owens wins a race, he cheated as we know that everyone given the same start should finish at the same time, right?
if men are in science more, the NIH has to give bounties to force the researchers not to hire white men, but call it ‘affirmative action’ and then us oppressor oppressed dialectal reasoning to present that its not what it is, racism the other way.
which actually is also why race crimes are one way, after all it was another feminist (just declaring the stuff she learned) that said that a oppressed class has a RIGHT to class hatred of their opressors.
of course all this is in english, and no one taught you what they actually did in the real grainy world of germany, just the dates, the big things, the meetings, and battles. not technique or method.
and ALWAYS, ALWAYS to paint the MAN as crazy and responsible, not the ideology he is implementing, that way, if he fails, the ideology can have another go at it, as it really isn’t its fault. right?
JUST as
People who use “n-word” are saying nigger and pretending they are not.
I have talked to a number of people of black extraction and they would rather not hear the word or have it used because of its historical significance and I can respect that.
But….
To choose not to use it is ok.
To ban it is not ok. Actually to ban it is leftism.
A couple of things occur to me reading this. Firstly, Huck Finn is in the public domain. I just switched over to my free books app and downloaded a copy in a matter of seconds n-words included. Nobody is taking them anywhere. That kind of idiotic censorship is thankfully no longer really possible.
Secondly, I am with you and other commenters in not liking it when black/Hispanic/white kids who think they are black say ‘nigga’. It sounds crass, ignorant and offensive. But they aren’t saying ‘nigger’. You can argue that this distiction is ludicrous and these kids are idiots, but I think the distinction should at least be acknowledged.
No words should be banned. None. The sensible thing for those “offended” by a word – any word – is to embrace it, and thereby defang it.
As a non-emotive example, consider baldness. Who hears more wise-ass references to baldness, bald guys who laugh when they hear them (or make them themselves!) or bald guys who turn purple? QED.
We should not call people clowns. It’s very offensive to people in the clown business. I know of several fights that have started when professional clowns hear someone being called a clown. They seem to be fighting a lot these days.
Just think…when all books are in electronic form and resident on the Cloud, we can get rid of actual “original editions,” and the censors will be able to improve books to fit the current politics just by modifying the one master copy.
This will be easy to do for copyrighted works; more difficult for public-domain works, but I’m sure the problem can be addressed after Obama’s victory in 2012.
Sensitivity Ueber Alles!
I wonder what words George Carlin would use now in his ’10 words you can’t say’? Funny how leftists loved using words that were offensive to so many (and still do so), yet act the same way at the point of a gun (govt force), rather than social pressure.
I see my 8:34 comment is tagged as “awaiting moderation,” though it is posted. I take that to mean Neo has a bad-word screen, with “n****r” (aka n-word) on the list. Hmmm. A troubling sign.
P.C. term for Indian Summer:
Native American Post Equinox Weather Phenomenon.
Listen to your George Carlin: not “dirty words”, but rather dirty thoughts. I has some serious disagreements with the late comedian, but in this instance he was dead on. Too bad he didn’t include “nigger” in his “heavy 7” — though I’m *sure* he would today.
I have my proper edition of Huck Finn and will pass it along to my children — along with the memory of my unrepentant southern grandfather watching football on TV one night and saying “wow, that nigger just laid a *lick* on that boy, din’t he?” He said this in the company of several black friends (he — and I — am white) and they all laughed and enjoyed his exuberance. The ’70s was a different time. So glad we’re more “enlightened” today.
The first book I remember falling in love with was “Tom Sawyer”, I think I was eight or maybe nine, and I was hooked for life. By fifth grade my prized Christmas present was a book of Twain’s short stories. That book is the sole possession I have kept since my childhood, and several of his writings have made me smile through the years. “Life on the Mississippi” helped me to understand that first year as a carpenter’s apprentice that no, I had not in fact become a slave, and I discovered from “The Diary of Adam and Eve” that I was not the only man hiding in a tree from his well meaning spouse.
I am learning what it means when it is said of old-timers that “they don’t suffer fools well”.
I am not old yet, but it is closer than farther. This business with the banning and editing of Twain wear’s me down. It makes me feel old.
Meanwhile, in unrelated news, the American Psychiatric Association, publisher of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, has announced that the long-awaited, fifth edition of the DSM will no longer feature the phrase mental disorder lest anyone with a mental disorder be upset, and the Oxford University Press has announced that the next edition of the famous, but surprisingly slim, comprehensive dictionary of all English words, the OED, will no longer feature any word at all which might possibly cause offence. A representative of the editorial committee, speaking anonymously, said, “Actually, I approved many of the deletions of really, really offensive terms, but was outvoted when it came to including more ordinary words: unfortunately, useful words such as moron, cretin, fool, idiot, buffoon, dolt, dunce, dunderhead, dullard, chump, blockhead, jughead, boob, nincompoop and numbskull, have been omitted on the grounds that the morons, cretins, fools, idiots, buffoons, dolts, dunces, dunderheads, dullards, chumps, blockheads, jugheads, boobs, nincompoops and numbskulls of the world might be peeved.” Any word–such as snigger, niggardly, bigger and jigger–which could possibly be misheard, or misinterpreted, or mispronounced, and thereby cause offence, will also go undefined in the new, enlightened OED.
The word slave will be used instead; so, surely, other, modern books (wherein the naughty word is used with more opprobrium) ought to be similarly edited.
From Charlie Valentine, Better Days Ahead (Woodinville, WA; 1996), p. 184 [as amended]:
From Maureen Honey, Bitter Fruit: African American Women in World War II (Columbia, MO; 1999), p. 225 [as amended]:
Yep; it’s a mighty powerful word, ‘slave’.
Read Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain.” On a related, but lighter note: I spent a week in Palm Springs, CA after Christmas last month. On the local internet news I saw the following headline: Indians Win in Alaska. I clicked on the article and learned that the Palm Springs high school basketball team, nicknamed the Indians, had won a holiday tournament in Alaska. Maybe there is still hope!
Quotes from the (unamended) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn–wherein slave means slave–which could confuse in the new edition:
I apologise. I cannot even read the comments to this. I am sure they are, as usual, insightful and well thought out, but my outrage has to have some limits. All I can say is they have taken perhaps the best anti slavery, anti bigotry, screed ever written in English and substantially ruined its impact by taking this step.
They have finally done it. They have finally made me ashamed to be an American. I do not say that lightly, nor is it said without the deepest of regrets. I am near tears at what has become of my country, my fellow citizens. How has such an outrage, such narrow mindedness, come to take place by those who see themselves as “liberal” and “progressive”? When did the Marxists win the cold war?
I am heartbroken over this. I love Twain, and I always will. I loved my country, but I can no longer be sure of that, which is to say, I don’t think I do any longer.
Oxford University Press has announced that the next edition of the famous, but surprisingly slim, comprehensive dictionary of all English words, the OED, will no longer feature any word at all which might possibly cause offence.
Hey, I”m offended by the word “Oxford” (and God knows, I have every reason to be, as it happens). So expunge that one too.
>>I have talked to a number of people of black extraction and they would rather not hear the word or have it used because of its historical significance and I can respect that.>>
I don’t. I really don’t even understand why it’s offensive. How is it different from being called “black”. Or African-American – when you’re not really. It’s a designator of race…nothing more. It doesn’t mean you’re a slave – supposedly there were as many black slave owners in the South as there were white slave owners. (I’m not sure how that could be true, but I have read it) There were white slaves – in fact supposedly the term “slave” derived from “Slavs” who were taken by the muslims.
So…why is it offensive?
Even when I was growing up, I was taught it was “rude” and an unacceptable term in polite company…but I don’t actually know why. I was told to use “negro” as the polite term…but that’s unacceptable now as well. It means black. So does “Black”…so what’s the difference?
“Black” is itself slowly achieving verbum non grata status. It’s not about the word; it’s about leftists trying to force us to amend our use of language at their behest.
Ultimately, to avoid opprobrium, they want everyone to look to them for what is and is not acceptable. Then: mission accomplished.
All the more reason to give “offense” (i.e., not conform to politically correct usage) intentionally, to release the pawl on the leftist linguistic ratchet.
Special to The Libertarian Enterprise
“Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
–Frederick Douglas
Personal anecdote: an earnest liberal friend, in response to a about one of my former grad students who was from Africa, referred to him as “African-American.”
I corrected him. The student was not African-American, he was African-African. Rather underscored the hypocrisy of the usage, because clearly he used “African-American” as a faux ethnic euphemism for a racial designation.
The Afro-American of the ‘Narcissus’: A novel of the sea (1897) by Joseph Conrad. Have to change that title lest it offend somebody.
“Nigger” is pejorative. Historically, indicated laziness, non-dependability, shuckin’ and jivin’. “Negro” and “Colored” are not. The NAACP remains to this day the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Of course, those nicer appellations are off-limits for whites to use too. Blacks dictate the use of this language; whites knuckle under.
Today it is OK for whites to speak of “people of color,” but not of “colored people.”
Occam’s Beard, a non-pleasing word is verbum non gratum.
Talking of Latin, we’ll have some work editing the classics, with all those black, dark or unlucky things described with the adjective nig-er, -ra, -rum.
E.M., you’re right. Thank you for the correction. I’d forgotten my second declension!
Some people come into communism through their minds and others through their bellies
1931 work is ‘A Play of Our Time’
‘Voices’ worth hearing – and listening to
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_371/1931.html
Hallie was the woman who ran the early Federal Theater Project as a propaganda machine using money that was supposed to go for relief
Chambers was a soviet spy…
and the quote at the start that was put in the play and rewrite was from Martin Dies…
as i said… if you know the history in fine detail, nothing is surprising that is going on.
Obama quickly went beyond NSPD 51, signing an order creating a “Council of Governors” who would be put in charge of declaring martial law. The directive is in direct violation of Posse Comitatus and the Insurrection Act. This “Council of Governors” answers only to President Obama.
Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)…
Some people come into communism through their minds and others through their bellies
how did i know it would go this path?
well, when you see a remake, is it exactly the same?
of course not…
but only in history do we deny that a remake that isnt exactly the same is the same!
different actors, different portrayals, but the same ideology, same methodology, same goal, same ideals, same morals, etc…
I also said that what we don’t believe, we don’t defend against… we all have locks on our doors because we believe in criminals, we dont have leprechaun repellent because we dont..
if you didn’t believe in criminals, what would happen to your property behind open doors?
that’s what happened
we were too confused and told too many excuses, and too ignorant, and too unwilling to count experience over fantasy, unwilling to invest time in what they know and you dont..
even now, we do not get the arrangement of parts, and the seriousness of whats going on outside our little lounge chair political discussions..
funny how China now has a stealth plane..
and that we do not know that the Chinese being familiar with all these ideas and ideologies and religion, would practice a form of hudna…
that is, pretending to be a friend when weak till your strong, then reveal your no friend. that is, a truce is only a truce while they are losing…
Terry A. Hoover
I think you have rather lost perspective here. One publisher ” NewSouth Books,” whoever they are, have decided to cater to the small percentage of the market who are idiotic enough to think this is a good idea. Big deal. America didn’t just die.
interesting other headline to go with the stealth thing.
China military eyes preemptive nuclear attack in event of crisis / ”Lowering the threshold of nuclear threats”
Liberalism = puritanism.
Because mention of pork and pork products is offensive to Muslims, references to pork should be changed to poultry references. Henceforth, Shakespeare’s great tragic hero Hamlet will become Chicklet.
Liberalism = Communism
here, let a communist from the the Brecht Forum in NYC tell you…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsTeXRQKvRI
i keep saying it, people keep ignoring it.
That progressives, socialists, anarchists, communists, Fabians, liberals (today), etc… are all THE SAME THING.
Tré«ndafil
Růže
Mawar
Роуз
Ruusu
Rožu
Gé¼l
What do they all MEAN? ROSE
I have shown Lenin expressed they were the same.
McKinnon expressed that they were the same and threw feminism in knowing its source history.
and i can go on with that list..
now we have people explaining on tape from the Brecht Forum….
the ONLY people that think otherwise are the idiot members of innocents clubs, fronts, and the common man who believes what people who identify themselves as subversives, and revolutionaries say!!
taken two years and it still hasn’t really sunk in to the point where implications bubble to the top, realizations occur, and an Epiphany of grand proportions slams one with dissonance so large you think your are becoming paranoid as they tell you people are who diverge from the declared ‘facts’, when all it is is the same history that existed a second before their transmogrification by eradication of their ignorance and the acceptance of what was IS what was, and so what is now flowers full from that as it was never removed accepting hudna as a means to an end over and over and over.
if they are all the same, then what have we been doing and why do we look back wistfully to the ill they cause trying to preserve what we think we are familiar with, but really have little idea.
RNB: why not go the whole hog, as it were, with Vegelet?