Posted by Andy Clayton on January 04, 2006 at 23:06:23 from 83.104.41.160 user cousin_jack.
In Reply to: Re: Oh, blow the lot of you! posted by Joy on January 04, 2006 at 18:23:24:
I've read the rather heated debate through-out this last week or so with interest, and hesitated to put my head over the parapet, I think I'll take a peek and toss a pebble over!
When I first read the books back in the mid-60's, age 10-13 or so, I wasn't disturbed much by the 'n' word, probably because such movements as women's lib, gay rights, civil rights hadn't yet produced their rather awful child P. Correctness. If anything nowadays I asign such anachronistic language to the same compartment as Lake District 'argot'and other outdated oddities like primuses, hurricane lamps and Rattletrap herself!
What DID make me squirm a bit then and I still don't feel comfy with, are the endless and frequently less than complimentary references, to 'Natives' and 'Savages'. However, no-one has suggested expunging these somewhat obsolete terms. It would certainly play havoc with the story-lines if some-one decided all these descriptions should also be edited out or replaced with a 'safe' alternative. I put safe in quotations as who is to say, 10 years down the line what the next generation will consider is reasonable?