Huckleberry Finn to be republished, editting out the "bad" words.

[Disco Pickle]

They're taking the word 'nigger' and 'injun' and replacing them with the words 'slave' and 'indian'

This gives me rage.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12126700

Twain scholar Alan Gribben says the use of the word "nigger" had prompted many US schools to stop teaching the classic.

In his edition, Professor Gribben replaces the word with "slave" and also changes "injun" to "Indian".

But the publisher says hundreds of people have complained about the edits.

First published in 1884, Huckleberry Finn is considered one of the great American novels.

While telling the story of a boy's journey down the Mississippi River some time between 1835 and 1845, the novel satirises Southern attitudes on race and slavery.
History of controversy

"The book is an anti-racist book and to change the language changes the power of the book," said Cindy Lovell, executive director of The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum in Hannibal, Missouri.

"He wrote to make us squirm and to poke us with a sharp stick. That was the purpose," she told Reuters news agency.

The novel has often been criticised for its language and characterisations and it is reported to be the fourth most banned book in US schools.

The "N-word" appears 219 times in the story.

Professor Gribben, who teaches English at Auburn University in Alabama, said he had given many public readings of Twain's books - and that when he replaced the word with "slave", audiences were more comfortable.
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote

    There is no way to 'clean up' Twain without doing irreparable harm to the truth of his work"

End Quote New York Times editorial

He said he wanted more people, especially younger people, to be encouraged to read the novel.

"It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvellous reading experience and a lot of readers," he said.

But the idea has been condemned by other scholars, teachers, writers and rights activists.

"Trying to erase the word from our culture is profoundly, profoundly wrong," said Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law School professor.

Dr Sarah Churchwell, a lecturer on American literature, told the BBC that it made a mockery of the story.

"It's about a boy growing up a racist in a racist society who learns to reject that racism, and it makes no sense if the book isn't racist," she told BBC World Service's Newshour programme. "You can't make the history of racism in America go away."
Power of words

Twain himself was very particular about his words.
File picture of American author Mark Twain Mark Twain did not take kindly to editing

He is quoted as saying that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter".

And when a printer made punctuation changes to A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Twain wrote later that he had "given orders for the typesetter to be shot without giving him time to pray".

The publisher of this new edition of Huckleberry Finn, New South Books, says dozens of people have telephoned to complain and hundreds have sent e-mails.

The press have also weighed in to the debate, generally in defence of the original version.

"What makes Huckleberry Finn so important in American literature isn't just the story, it's the richness, the detail, the unprecedented accuracy of its spoken language," the New York Times said in an editorial. "There is no way to 'clean up' Twain without doing irreparable harm to the truth of his work."

In the UK, an editorial in The Times called the new edition "a well-intentioned act of cultural vandalism and obscurantism that constricts rather than expands the life of the mind".

The sanitised version will be published on 15 February, in a joint reissue with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which also has the offensive epithets replaced.

[AFK]

Yeah I heard about this.  This is facepalm of epic proportions.  I mean really, these words aren't going to hurt the kids.  What's going to hurt the kids is when we sanitize and scrub the bad shit that happened in the past.  I mean that whole idea of being damned to repeat past mistakes isn't going to work if you dip the past in a vat of bleach. 

[Disco Pickle]

^ exactly this.  Well said sir.

[AFK]

There are times and places for PC.  I mean, we don't want the teachers calling the black students the N-word.  But geez louise lets give the kids enough credit to know that what is in an old book isn't there to insult them today. 

[Cain]

I think we should edit Mein Kampf to make it more acceptable to modern audiences as well.

[Whatever]

 

Re-writing history and by god we'll make it pretty and you will fucking like it that way!

By the time they are done my grandkids will think slavery was a nasty myth.

I was suspended for 5 days for using Huck Finn in my senior term paper (it was banned in my district) they are taking away my fucking rebellion and making a mockery of it.

Fucking PC assholes!!!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

[LMNO]

However, I can totally see why a teacher at an under funded, short-staffed, violence prone inner city public school would probably opt out of trying to teach the book.

[Phox]

However, I can totally see why a teacher at an under funded, short-staffed, violence prone inner city public school would probably opt out of trying to teach the book.

Sure, but's that's a little different than, oh, i don't know.... ALTERING THE FUCKING TEXT.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You could also say from the get go, "This is an anti-racism book that has some pretty strong language in it. If you have a problem with it, you might as well not watch Roots, or even listen to rap"

[LMNO]

You're talking about an enviroment where, when I was a kid, there were protests against reading Romeo and Juliet, because it was "sexist".  Common sense does not apply here.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You're talking about an enviroment where, when I was a kid, there were protests against reading Romeo and Juliet, because it was "sexist".  Common sense does not apply here.

That sucks. When I was a kid we just didn't read the book if we didn't like it.

Blight,
Didn't often do very well in English class

[Phox]

We read A Separate Peace when I was in school.

[Whatever]

We read A Separate Peace when I was in school.

The only thing I took away from that book was how to spell seperate and separate and when.... 

Seriously, I'm damn near 43 and I can't remember what the fuck the book was about but every fucking time I go to use that word, that book title comes to mind.



SEE TEACHERS, we won't remember nigger being used in a book 20 years later.   



This makes me so damn mad I just can't see straight.  If there is such a fucking issue with the goddamn book then don't teach from it.  Don't re-write a fucking classic to be politically correct.

My oldest just did Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer last semester!  He said the entire class got a bit of a chuckle when they read parts out loud.  I was like why and he laughed and said they usually got "In School Suspension" for saying nigger so they all felt like they were getting away with something.  Otherwise he enjoyed both books.

[Phox]

We read A Separate Peace when I was in school.

The only thing I took away from that book was how to spell seperate and separate and when.... 

Seriously, I'm damn near 43 and I can't remember what the fuck the book was about but every fucking time I go to use that word, that book title comes to mind.

S'bout a gay teenager who may have been a sociopath.