

Political correctness hits new high: Huck Finn to be bowdlerized in new edition - Jun8
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/05/does-one-word-change-huckleberry-finn

======
raganwald
_You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial
spin on it, the editors may rewrite it._

Editors, please restore the original title. This one has gratuitous editorial
spin. In the very first paragraph of the OP, the explanation for the change is
given that it makes it easier for students to understand and absorb the book,
which is a very different thing than changing the book just to avoid offending
people.

I don't agree with the rationale, but we should not editorialize the title to
the point of misrepresenting the content of the OP and by introducing an
emotionally loaded term.

p.s. The other comments I've seen so far are all commenting on the artificial
title, not the content of the post itself. Isn't that why we don't want to
editorialize titles?

~~~
Jun8
Do you think the term "political correctness" or the word "bowdlerize" is the
gratuitous editorial spin? If it's the latter you're wrong, this is _exactly_
what bowdlerization means. In fact I mistakenly used "censored" at first, than
I changed the title. If you read the discussion here (and elsewhere), you'll
see that the reason Alan Gribben made the change is mainly that he saw people
were uncomfortable in his public readings in Alabama. His audience understood
and absorbed the book alright, they just found this word objectionable.

However, if you take issue with my labeling this as PC, this might be
debatable. On the one hand you have sensibilities, etc, on the other respect
for an author's text. If you read Paul Butler's (in my opinion quite flawed)
comments in the discussion, you'll see that he doesn't actually object to the
usage of the work "nigger", he just doesn't like it when it is appropriated by
people other than African-Americans. This is a common approach, which I tend
to agree _for now_. To try to use the current situation to change Twains's
work is indefensible.

~~~
raganwald
The OP has a title, "Does One Word Change 'Huckleberry Finn'?" This title
completely changes the tone of the original title.

Titles matter, they establish a direction and context for what is to follow.
Retitling something on HN has even greater effect; Some people (like myself)
may be very interested in the literary impact of a single word change but may
be tired of rehashing the same social debates over again. I might have skipped
this post entiurely were it not for my surprise that the times would use a
title like this.

Other people might be very interested in your title but be disappointed that
the content doesn't match the title very well. Your title could apply to any
of a few dozen recent posts in the news about this bowdlerizing.

My suggestion is that it would have been better to post the original title and
include a comment with your feelings.

~~~
Jun8
I see. I am feeling very strongly about this, so, granted, the title may have
had a bit more impact than warranted. However, I disagree with you in the
following points:

1) You don't have to use the same title as the news topic. I don't understand
your sprise that NYT would use such a title. The correct usage is to use
quotation marks if the title is used verbatim.

2) The main point of the OP is not to delve into literary theory on the
relationship between the "text" and the novel, etc., which is of academic
interest (though I find that very interesting as well, having worked on
stylometry for my thesis). The issue is exactly to "rehash the same social
debates over again," you may be tired of these, and that's OK; but evidently
they are utmost significance to a lot of non-academician people (have a look
at user comments in the debate)

3) I still don't quite see why the "content doesn't match the title very
well", since you haven't made it very clear which part of the title you found
misleading. The word "bowdlerize" comes up in most of the comment pieces and
in user comments, too, so this is _clearly_ bowdlerization.

My intent is not to continue pointless back&forth but to understand the
(potential) problem.

~~~
raganwald
Well, perhaps you can explain why you changed the title. What did you find
unsatisfactory about it? Was it that you wanted to attract more clicks? Did
you want to express a personal opinion? Did you think it did a poor job of
introducing the text?

~~~
Jun8
I sense an unwarranted hostility in your comments, which puzzle me.

There's no rule that by default story titles have be used verbatim, only that
they should not be changed gratuitously. In fact, if you look at past
submissions to HN, you see that many times the title was changed by the
submitter. I see no problem in having titles reflect personal opinion; of
course, this should not be overdone.

NYT, being a newspaper has to impose limits on their titles, so as to serve
the common denominator. when posting to HN, I'm not bound by the same rules as
NYT. In this particular case NYT's title is too weak, as evidenced by the
commentators, i.e. quite everyone agrees this is bowdlerizing Twain's text.

P.S. Thinking of hand crafting submission titles to attract more clicks, i.e.
karma whoring, is laughable, I'm too old to waste my precious time on such
tricks :-)

~~~
raganwald
I'm going to let you go now. If you're feeling hostility, I suggest that the
very best thing is to just walk away and forget about it. It's a title. Of a
submission. To a rather ephemeral web site. There is absolutely zero emotional
investment on my part. I have certain opinions about what is or isn't positive
for HN the site, but at no time would I ever consider them more important than
your personal enjoyment and security.

~~~
Jun8
:-) I think you are taking things a bit too seriously. What I meant was your
comments (i.e. your immediate call for the editors to change the title, rather
than asking the submitter to do it, and the others) seem to address the whole
title change issue "from the height of an unwritten book". You're right, when
this impedance mismatch occurs in newsgroups it's best to let it go.

That being said, I found our small discussion less than satisfactory.
Obviously you have been on HN much longer than I am (more than three times as
long), so I respect your intuition about HN etiquette. However, in this case
you seemed to have certain assumptions about my intentions (more clicks, etc.)
to editorialize the title and you never discussed why you think the new title
is so misleading for the story.

As for the idea of bowdlerizing Twain, the idea is generating such a backlash
(e.g. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/07/opinion/l07twain.html>, Google
returns 25K hits from past month for "twain bowdlerize") that I think they are
going to backpedal on this one. I hope.

~~~
raganwald
I aso hope that they backpedal, and do so swiftly. For a very long time I
loved a children's librarian from Bermuda. She taught me a great deal about
liberty and censorship. She strongly believed that some books should not be
carried in a children's library. She also strongly believed that books should
not be revised: Either they were fit for the library or not.

I haven't asked her, but I suspect that she is fine with the original, and if
she wasn't, she wouldn't be fine with the revision either.

------
hugh3
Fabulous. I sure hope I'll soon be able to get versions of all my favourite
hip-hop records with the word "nigger" similarly replaced, because it really
spoils my enjoyment of the music.

------
vixen99
Doesn't censorship just help retain the derogatory aura, (for some) of a word
which in itself merely comes from the latin word for black?

~~~
raganwald
I hope you appreciate that the expression "Nigger merely comes from the latin
word for black" is as factually true as the expression "Cocksucker merely
describes a person as one who performs an act many people find mutually
pleasant."

~~~
Jun8
Yet somehow we don't have editors replacing the word "cocksucker" with, say,
"sexual performer".

Non-US readers may not fully appreciate the stigma associated with the word
"nigger". It has complex usage rules, incomparable to other racially
derogatory words such as "goon" or "chink" (I don't think that anyone really
uses "injun" anymore).

I think Mark Bauerlein's comment is sport on, to a student in his class who
got offended by the word he said:

"Listen, you’re in college now, and that’s going to put pressure on you. In
many courses you’ll have to face some awful facts of history, and to handle
them well you can’t let them offend you so much."

------
pierrefar
" _Political correctness hits new high_ ". Surely you meant new _low_?

~~~
Jun8
:-) Interesting. In the sense that PC is increasing, this is a new high, but
of, course it's a new low for our institutions.

What I find interesting is that there's a small group of words in English that
are their own antonyms, e.g. sanction, oversight, and cleave (this is may
favorite). Also fun are phrases that have come to mean the exact opposite over
the centuries, e.g. "I DOUBT some foul play", "[I'll kill anyone] who LETS me
[pass]" from _Hamlet_.

~~~
Vivtek
"Awful and artificial".

