Ban a word and you ban a thought.

FoxForce5

I genuinely feel scared when I see things like this. All new copies of Charlie and the chocolate factory will have the word 'fat' removed in reference to Augustus Gloop.

https://www.thejournal.ie/roald-dahl-books-edited-5998910-Feb2023/

20Wheel

mental.

if true. the thing is, sometimes marketers, or newspapers or other various bad actors will make up stuff and then go 'oh look woke', or 'oh look racist'.

really they just want to say 'oh look' but 'oh look' doesn't work anymore.

theres already too many other businesses saying 'oh look'. so you have to say oh look i think theres been a rape up there.

in the words of david brent, get their attention.

look at roald dahls books = no.

look at roald dahls books theres woke madness happening = ok ill look.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058284863/ban-a-word-and-you-ban-a-thought

Why are you scared?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259228#Comment_120259228

Not to answer for them but to answer in my view...

I think it's a feeling of being scared to say the wrong thing when you don't mean it..like I would never call someone fat meaning it in a bad way...i would be very cautious of that ...I remember when I was 11 and the 19 year old guy everyone had a crush on walked by me and said 'youre fat' and I no joke starved myself for months because of it because I did have a bit of puppy fat but even if someone might mean it in a bad way it doesn't make them a bad person, it depends on context etc...people get mad they say mean things to other people...they might resolve it they might not...it's a fear of not being allowed to express yourself from words you've naturally been expressing yourself and were taught from whenever...like we can't ban all negative words.

thegame983

Think about how much Roald Dalh has contributed to the lives of children and then compare it to how little the cretin who came up this idea has contributed.

How arrogant must one be to think that they have the right to change any aspect of any of his work.

ArmaniJeanss

It's not that unusual, and definitely not some modern-day wokeness thing. Been going on forever really.

Off the top of my head, Agatha Christies masterpiece And Then There Were None was originally Ten Little N-Words, then became Ten Little Indians before it's present title, with everything within the text edited to reflect the changes.

In childrens literature, something like Enid Blython has been through multiple edits over the years - to remove the amount of dark unclean foreigners called Jo-Jo being the bad guy, taking gollywogs out of existence and renaming unfortunate characters like Aunt Fanny.

Nothing to be scared about.

FoxForce5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259228#Comment_120259228

Because words are the manifestation of thought. If you can't say a word you eventually won't think the thought. Just ask any Chinese tourist to say the words "tiananmen 1989" and you will see how banning words works.

Is it just physical description words that should be banned or words like cretin, leprechaun etc should be banned?

I don't really understand it tbh.

Actually...we can ban that word Bint...Ill lose fat (not literally) if we can get rid of bint. Thankyou.

FoxForce5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259501#Comment_120259501

You'll have to check with the thought police, they have a list.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259515#Comment_120259515

I can think for myself thankyou. I'm sure we can work it out. Bint hurts me like fat does. It's all about compromise...

Leg End Reject

Looking at the past through the prism of the present shouldn't evoke anger. We should be able to accept that language and sensibilities evolve, and not always for the best.

A lot of older artistic works would not be deemed worthy today, but that doesn’t make altering them acceptable. We evolved from a more primitive species where social norms and niceties were unheard of, but that doesn’t justify rewriting history.

Some people just need to cop on.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259400#Comment_120259400

They literally have that right or else they wouldn’t be able to do it.

Nobody has banned anything and nobody is rewriting history. The owners of the rights to the books have simply made a commercial decision to make some updates to newer editions of the books in order to increase their appeal to modern audiences.

The existence of new editions doesn’t change the older editions and it will be a very very long time before those older editions become particularly hard to get hold of for those who want them.

silliussoddius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259484#Comment_120259484

Nothing is being banned, it’s a commercial decision not a government enforcement.

One eyed Jack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120259484#Comment_120259484

That’s very 1984ish though, when in reality there are dozens of ways to convey the same idea, and new ways to convey one’s thoughts are invented all the time. It’s how languages have evolved. The revisions of Dahl’s works are entirely at the behest of the new owners to the rights of Dahl’s works - Netflix. It doesn’t mean that the same language can’t be used any more, it’s simply that Netflix won’t be using it as they want to appeal to a broader audience.

One of my favourite books of all time is Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley in 1818 when she was 19 years old, published anonymously. In 1823 she put her name to the book, critics of the time had a field day, and in 1831 a third edition was published which was intended to be more in line with Victorian sensitivities of the time. It became the version that’s most popular today, but it’s completely different from the original published a decade earlier.

https://stanforddaily.com/2018/11/29/frankenstein-and-its-transformations/

There’s unlikely to be similar vexation if David Walliams’ works do actually eventually come under similar scrutiny. The minute I read about Dahl, I figured there might be a similar spotlight shone on Walliams’ work which is of a similar style (he even uses the same illustrator as Dahl) -

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/18/david-walliams-could-have-roald-dahl-like-humour-edited-books/

Graces7

Are there no copyright issues on this?

And of course there are thousands of copies already safe.

Cookie_Monster

could it be replaced with obese?

Cos he was that much of a fat **** that its perfectly accurate

Oscar Madison

All this nonsense started with Enid Blyton!

Do people not have better things to do?