Niggardly. Again
Eric San Juan
that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR and
a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a modern film.
(It means stingy). Just as a follow-up of sorts, here is a news article
of interest. It is not Tolkien-related:
http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/1699649p-1717688c.html
Michael Cole
Ah yes, and Niggard comes from Middle English and possibly from Scandinavian
"Nig" meaning stingy, wheras Nigger comes from the Spanish "negro" from
Latin "niger", meaning black.
And these are supposed to be teachers...
(BTW, I'm suprised that "Leaf by Niggle" hasn't been banned...)
--
Regards,
Michael Cole
Marcin Mankowski
>(BTW, I'm suprised that "Leaf by Niggle" hasn't been banned...)
Hush. They will not notice this book if we keep quiet about.
Stan Brown
rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
>that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR
Actually, he uses the word "niggard", which (as you imply) means
"stingy person". He's praising Eomer for consenting to the marriage
of Eowyn to Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.
"'No niggard are you, Éomer,' said Aragorn, 'to give thus to Gondor
the fairest thing in your realm!'"
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Tolkien FAQs: http://Tolkien.slimy.com (Steuard Jensen's site)
Tolkien letters FAQ:
http://users.telerama.com/~taliesen/tolkien/lettersfaq.html
FAQ of the Rings: http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/ringfaq.htm
Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm
more FAQs: http://oakroadsystems.com/tech/faqget.htm
Dave Schulman
news:al6ae6$1n3lsu$1...@ID-156864.news.dfncis.de...
> Eric San Juan wrote:
> > Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last
> > year that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in
> > LotR and a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a
> > modern film. (It means stingy). Just as a follow-up of sorts, here is
> > a news article of interest. It is not Tolkien-related:
> >
> > http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/1699649p-
> > 1717688c.html
>
> Ah yes, and Niggard comes from Middle English and possibly from
Scandinavian
> "Nig" meaning stingy, wheras Nigger comes from the Spanish "negro" from
> Latin "niger", meaning black.
>
> And these are supposed to be teachers...
"Ah yes, a bolt of lightning into a huge copper conductor... I thought
you lived in a school!" :-)
Ewan Jackson OBE, Civil Rights Activist
> Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
> that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR and
> a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a modern film.
There we have it - 100% proof that Tolkien is a racist.
Ewan Jackson
--
Protect your kids! Please support The American Guardian:
http://members.odinsrage.com/guardian
Michael O'Neill
Interesting article.
Guilt about centuries of slavery, rape, torture, beatings, killings and
general abuse of the African American population can do that I suppose.
It still doesn't make the word abusive. I think there's grounds for
wrongful dismissal there.
Ironically it was the offended child's lack of a good education which
created conditions for her to become offended in this manner.
My father used the word, in its correct sense, about several misers he
had met over his lifetime including an old landlord of his, who was
white and Jewish.
No amount of face-saving firings of competent white officials and
teachers will change the demographics of Black Americans in terms of
poverty, rate of deaths by murder, percentage of adult males in prison,
etc, etc.
These are matters which can only be changed by engagement with the Black
communities, a much harder task that butchering the English language and
firing people to suit oversensitive black parents and their children.
I remain unimpressed with "The American Way".
Now, I really *must* dash off. The West Wing is on tonight on RTE.
M.
Gary E. Masters
One should not say that in the District of Columbia.
AC
> "Eric San Juan" <shoeg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<%oxd9.173207$On.67...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>...
>> Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
>> that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR and
>> a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a modern film.
>
> There we have it - 100% proof that Tolkien is a racist.
Only to the incompetent who can't pick up a dictionary.
--
AC
AC
> In article <MPG.17e08c4c2...@news.odyssey.net>, qx1...@bigfoot.com
> says...
>>
>>Eric San Juan <shoeg...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>>rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>>>Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
>>>that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR
>>
>>Actually, he uses the word "niggard", which (as you imply) means
>>"stingy person". He's praising Eomer for consenting to the marriage
>>of Eowyn to Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.
>>
>>"'No niggard are you, Éomer,' said Aragorn, 'to give thus to Gondor
>>the fairest thing in your realm!'"
>
> time, and indications are it will be a tempest in a teapot the second time
> around.
>
> Is there any compelling reason why we must revisit this discussion? Any reason?
Because it's soooo much fun. Nothing amuses me more than watching some twit
display his or her inability to walk over to a decent dictionary and look up
a word. Rather like all those feminists who hate the "history" so much that
they made up their own word, "herstory". I had a very interesting debate
with a hardcore feminist seven or eight years ago on another newsgroup about
this.
--
AC
the softrat
wrote:
>qx1...@bigfoot.com (Stan Brown) wrote in message news:<MPG.17e08c4c2...@news.odyssey.net>...
>> Eric San Juan <shoeg...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>> >Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
>> >that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR
>>
>> Actually, he uses the word "niggard", which (as you imply) means
>> "stingy person". He's praising Eomer for consenting to the marriage
>> of Eowyn to Faramir, Prince of Ithilien.
>>
>> "'No niggard are you, Éomer,' said Aragorn, 'to give thus to Gondor
>> the fairest thing in your realm!'"
>>
Because they are so niggardly in DC so they take offence?
the softrat "He who rubs owls"
the Zulu Princess
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Give your child mental blocks for Christmas.
Maxx
LOL!
Mostly, I say, *MOSTLY* well said.
This is the furthest thing from the American Way that you can have.
And, regarding, "Guilt about centuries of slavery, rape, torture,
beatings, killings and general abuse of the African American
population can do that I suppose" ... so it was JUST America doing the
slavery thing, or was it pretty much the entire world, including (AND
interestingly, the practice of slavery is now mostly limited to in
modern times), Africa?
Morthond
"Michael Cole" <michae...@hansen.com> escribió en el mensaje
news:al6ae6$1n3lsu$1...@ID-156864.news.dfncis.de...
> Eric San Juan wrote:
> > Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last
> > year that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in
> > LotR and a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a
> > modern film. (It means stingy). Just as a follow-up of sorts, here is
> > a news article of interest. It is not Tolkien-related:
> >
> > http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/1699649p-
> > 1717688c.html
>
> Ah yes, and Niggard comes from Middle English and possibly from
Scandinavian
> "Nig" meaning stingy, wheras Nigger comes from the Spanish "negro" from
> Latin "niger", meaning black.
Or "dark" --- nick adopted by patrician families in the Roman Republic.
Niger - dark (eyes, hair, skin. All of them or a combination of some)
Caesar - "hairy", abundant hair
Rufus - "red-haired"
Flavian - "fair"
etc....
> And these are supposed to be teachers...
>
> (BTW, I'm suprised that "Leaf by Niggle" hasn't been banned...)
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Michael Cole
>
Dios! I hate PC threads...
Cheers
Morthond
Morthond
"the softrat" <sof...@pobox.com> escribió en el mensaje
news:rc1fnucp37i9nbu9p...@4ax.com...
The "Softrat" is taunting again....
;-)
cheers
Morthond
Morthond
"Michael O'Neill" <o...@indigo.ie> escribió en el mensaje
news:3D778E23...@indigo.ie...
> Eric San Juan wrote:
> >
> > Maybe some of you might recall the sprawling thread from early last year
> > that erupted over the word "niggardly," a word Aragorn uses in LotR and
> > a word many contended would be inappropriate for use in a modern film.
> > (It means stingy). Just as a follow-up of sorts, here is a news article
> > of interest. It is not Tolkien-related:
> >
> > http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/1699649p-1717688c.html
>
> Interesting article.
>
> Guilt about centuries of slavery, rape, torture, beatings, killings and
> general abuse of the African American population can do that I suppose.
> It still doesn't make the word abusive. I think there's grounds for
> wrongful dismissal there.
(snip)
Right,
Let´s start with the Italians suing everyotherEuropean for stealing lands
and oppressing them. Then we could go with the:
"All of Europe vs. Italy" for Roman conquest
"Mediterranean, the Balcans and Eastern Europe vs Turkey" for conquest and
oppression
"Turkey vs everysingleEuropeancountry for bullying, oppressing, etc..."
"All of Europe vs. France" for reparations on the Napoleonic wars.
"Germany vs the world" for occupation
"a sh...load of countries vs Germany" for war
"Germany vs the 1st WW allies" for oppressive conditions that led to the war
"Spain vs Germany+Italy" for civil war intervention
"Spain vs Western democracies" for non-intervention
"Spain vs herself" for triggering civil war
"The Americas vs Spain, Portugal, France, England and everyotherEuropean
country that tried to get its share in the new world"
"Russia vs a sh...load of people, countries and dictators for murder,
oppression and misrule"
Should I go on...?
Cheers
Morthond
PS: No America-bashing here
:-D
pmhi...@mfx.net
Your comment & link are so outrageously ill-informed as to be at once hilarious and horrifying. Hilarious in that they are
so utterly stupid; horrifying in that so many non-thinking people are willing to swallow such garbage.
Pete Hilton aka The Ent
--
Do not insult the alligator
'till you've crossed the river.
anon.
the softrat
wrote:
>
>The "Softrat" is taunting again....
>
the softrat "He who rubs owls"
the Zulu Princess
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.
Morthond
cr
> ...
> teachers will change the demographics of Black Americans in terms of
> poverty, rate of deaths by murder, percentage of adult males in prison,
> etc, etc.
> These are matters which can only be changed by engagement with the Black
> communities, a much harder task that butchering the English language and
> firing people to suit oversensitive black parents and their children.
> I remain unimpressed with "The American Way".
> Now, I really *must* dash off. The West Wing is on tonight on RTE.
You really must pop across the pond someday and see "The American Way" for
yourself, instead of accepting unexamined political propaganda as truth.
-cr
Brock Lesnar
news:MPG.17e08c4c2...@news.odyssey.net...
> "'No niggard are you, Éomer,' said Aragorn, 'to give thus to Gondor
> the fairest thing in your realm!'"
Everybody knows the Rohirrim aren't niggards!
They come from Harad : remember this bit from the Battle of the Pelenor
Fields
"There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of
Gondor, waiting on the call of their Captain. He now was destroyed; but
Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings
with axes, and Variags of Khand. Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad
niggards like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues."
Brock
Michael O'Neill
Nope. Lots of countries practiced and still do practice slavery.
I just looks like America, with its thousands of Jewish psychiatrists,
seems to have gone further into the realms of guilt and denial than
most.
No surprises there, ehhhhh?
M.
Michael O'Neill
<shakes head>
You really must learn to make an intelligent guess as to when I'm taking
the piss.
M.
Michael O'Neill
While I didn't under stand the bit about the Italians suing Europe
first, I was just starting to get interested, so yes, please go on.
M.
Eric San Juan
> cr wrote:
> >
<snip>
> >
> > You really must pop across the pond someday and see "The American
Way" for
> > yourself, instead of accepting unexamined political propaganda as
truth.
>
>
> You really must learn to make an intelligent guess as to when I'm
taking
> the piss.
Which is generally more than half the time, really.
Michael O'Neill
I agree with this psot.
M.
Darkfalz
Rob Taggart
Speaking of Shakespearean plays...
MacDuff used a form of the word niggard in "MacBeth".
Rob Taggart
The Plaid Piper
http://www.expage.com/theplaidpiper
Flame of the West
> >> "'No niggard are you, Éomer,' said Aragorn, 'to give thus to Gondor
> >> the fairest thing in your realm!'"
> >>
> >One should not say that in the District of Columbia.
>
> Because they are so niggardly in DC so they take offence?
He's referring to the case of a D.C. mayoral aide who was forced
to resign after saying the word "niggard."
--
-- FotW, official decider of what's fair and what's not
Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.
Dragan Cvetkovic
> the softrat wrote:
> > >One should not say that in the District of Columbia.
> >
> > Because they are so niggardly in DC so they take offence?
>
> He's referring to the case of a D.C. mayoral aide who was forced
> to resign after saying the word "niggard."
>
Is this true? Where can one find more details? That's almost unbelievable.
Bye, Dragan
--
Dragan Cvetkovic,
To be or not to be is true. G. Boole No it isn't. L. E. J. Brouwer
the softrat
<d1r2a3g4a...@soli99ton.com> wrote:
>Flame of the West <Fo...@nospam.solinas.org> writes:
>
>> the softrat wrote:
>> > >One should not say that in the District of Columbia.
>> >
>> > Because they are so niggardly in DC so they take offence?
>>
>> He's referring to the case of a D.C. mayoral aide who was forced
>> to resign after saying the word "niggard."
>
>Is this true? Where can one find more details? That's almost unbelievable.
>
It is, unfortunately, all too true.
DC is a weird and wonderful place. ('wonderful' here is not a
complement; it merely denotes 'inspiring wonder'.)
the softrat "He who rubs owls"
the Zulu Princess
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
Mind Like A Steel Trap - Rusty And Illegal In 37 States.
Bill O'Meally
"the softrat" <sof...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:pokinucemq2qaj21p...@4ax.com...
Considering we're talking about a city whose mayor gets busted for crack,
then does jail time only to get re-elected, it doesn't sound so strange
afterall.
--
Bill
"Wise fool"
Gandalf, THE TWO TOWERS
AC
> Flame of the West <Fo...@nospam.solinas.org> writes:
>
>> the softrat wrote:
>> > >One should not say that in the District of Columbia.
>> >
>> > Because they are so niggardly in DC so they take offence?
>>
>> He's referring to the case of a D.C. mayoral aide who was forced
>> to resign after saying the word "niggard."
>>
>
> Is this true? Where can one find more details? That's almost unbelievable.
No, it's Washington DC.
--
AC
a0294078
"Darkfalz" <dark...@xis.com.au> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:alaodo$1lm5sf$1...@ID-108208.news.dfncis.de...
> NIGGERS
>
>
I dont think the Dark Elves will like that....
Steve Hayes
>NIGGERS
In the United States there are two things they can't stand: the one's
segregation, the other's niggers.
--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: haye...@yahoo.com
Web: http://www.methodius.bookcrossing.com/
Scott Munro
<d1r2a3g4a...@soli99ton.com> wrote:
>Flame of the West <Fo...@nospam.solinas.org> writes:
>> He's referring to the case of a D.C. mayoral aide who was forced
>> to resign after saying the word "niggard."
>>
>
>Is this true? Where can one find more details? That's almost unbelievable.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9901/27/word.flap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/US/9902/04/dc.word.flap/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/jan99/district27.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm
--
Scott Munro
"But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the
greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness,
without tuition or restraint."
--Edmund Burke, *Reflections on the Revolution in France*
Flame of the West
> The last paragraph in the article I linked to in starting this thread
> cites the incident. Punch the information into a search engine and
> you'll find some news stories on it in less than five minutes.
Here's one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/jan99/district27.htm
It really is astonishing. One wonders if Washington DC has anyone
of any race with an IQ over 65. And to think those cretins want
statehood!*
--
-- FotW, official decider of what's fair and what's not
*No, I'm not insulting people from Crete!
Kesh
the NAACP (an american black pressure group, fellow non-americans) said the
mayor acted niggardly when he fired his aide. Nice to find someone with wit
and an education involved in pressure group politics.
A university professor was also dismissed for using the word, the details of
that too turn up with a yahoo search.
Kesh
Morthond
"Kesh" <ke...@rmharrison.fsnet.co.uk> escribió en el mensaje
news:aldgvs$21i$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
LOL, welcome to the PC world...
Andrew Bones Simpson
but I'd just like to say something here. After I first saw that word
in ROTK, I actually searched for it using Google Groups. I expected
results, but not of the magnitude that the search yielded. I found
tons of threads, all containing the same thing, all stating the same
points over and over. The first few posts are always the definition,
then there's the PC-haters, the PC-hater-haters, etc. You can find
these threads in places other than Tolkien-related newsgroups, but
thats not really important. As far as my view, I think that mostly
everyone is completely right in their argument. Yes, it is ridiculous
that the word cannot be used without inciting some racial debate, but
it is also very nieve to use such a word without expecting the
corresponding response. As far as that teacher in this thread is
concerned, I think she should not have ignored the obvious similarity
to the racial slur, but just explained it, and moved on.
Now I know many people will not agree with me on this, but it is my
opinion that the racial slur should also be taught in school, many
times over. Then the word doesn't become a forbidden term, it's just
another word. It's still offensive, and that should also be said (if
it even needs to be), but the word would lose so much of its power.
By hiding it and making it almost illegal for anyone to use it (and,
obviously, to use any word that sounds like it), it becomes a sort of
"forbidden fruit," and its value and power comes from our hiding of
it. Could anyone argue well that ignoring a word will actually make
it go away? I say it makes it worse. The antidote is simple.
Well, I don't want to write too much. Now I'm just another
contributer to this amazingly controversial debate...
Also, to the guy who posted the comment on "Leaf by Niggle" - I just
read this story about two days ago. I had the exact same thought.
Regards,
Andrew Simpson
Stan Brown
rec.arts.books.tolkien:
>Now I know many people will not agree with me on this, but it is my
>opinion that the racial slur should also be taught in school, many
>times over. Then the word doesn't become a forbidden term, it's just
>another word.
I used to think so too. But an episode of /Boston Public/ earlier
this year, where a teacher did just that, changed my mind.
On the other hand, I hold very strongly that we should not change
literary works to suit the fashions of the day. For example,
/Huckleberry Finn/ and /The Lord of the Rings/ were both products of
their times, and both had profound respect for the person, and both
used language that would raise eyebrows today. The solution, I
believe, is not to condemn the work, but to read it with historical
perspective.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
"Thoroughness. I always tell my students, but they are
constitutionally averse to painstaking work."
-- Emma Thompson, in /Wit/ (2000)
Paul S. Person
>Because it's soooo much fun. Nothing amuses me more than watching some twit
>display his or her inability to walk over to a decent dictionary and look up
>a word. Rather like all those feminists who hate the "history" so much that
>they made up their own word, "herstory". I had a very interesting debate
>with a hardcore feminist seven or eight years ago on another newsgroup about
>this.
I would think that "hertory" would work better ...
--
You are not being ignored! With rare exceptions:
I download on Saturdays. I upload on Sundays. Patience is a virtue
Boris Badenov
|>Because it's soooo much fun. Nothing amuses me more than watching some twit
|>display his or her inability to walk over to a decent dictionary and look up
|>a word. Rather like all those feminists who hate the "history" so much that
|>they made up their own word, "herstory". I had a very interesting debate
|>with a hardcore feminist seven or eight years ago on another newsgroup about
|>this.
|
|I would think that "hertory" would work better ...
With his story you can elide the sibilants into history. With her story you cannot.
Seems to me it has to be herstory. But, why they even bother is beyond me, because it is
clearly impossible to emasculate the language - at least, the English language - with
gender-neutral terms.
If you eschew man or woman for person, a person is still through the son. What next,
persons and perdaughters?
Joy
<snip>
> it is clearly impossible to emasculate the language - at least, the
> English language - with gender-neutral terms.
>
> If you eschew man or woman for person, a person is still through
> the son. What next, persons and perdaughters?
Man and wommon, or men and wimmin, are all part of the humon race. We are
all persuns. Haven't you read those politically correct bedtime stories?
Funny stuff. (Funny haha, not funny peculiar.)
-joy
pmhi...@mfx.net
> AC <sp...@nospam.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> >Because it's soooo much fun. Nothing amuses me more than watching some twit
> >display his or her inability to walk over to a decent dictionary and look up
> >a word. Rather like all those feminists who hate the "history" so much that
> >they made up their own word, "herstory". I had a very interesting debate
> >with a hardcore feminist seven or eight years ago on another newsgroup about
> >this.
>
> I would think that "hertory" would work better ...
I have great fun telling people that in 1973 I had a "hisnea" repaired. Both my
present & first wives have had herstorectomies. But the fun cones to a screeching
halt when you meet someone dim enough in the dome to actually take this sort of
bandying of words seriously! This rather windy thread is one indication of that!
Yours in the north Maine woods,
Pete Hilton aka The Ent
--
Do not insult the alligator
'till you've crossed the river.
anon.
pmhi...@mfx.net
> For example,
> /Huckleberry Finn/ and /The Lord of the Rings/ were both products of
> their times, and both had profound respect for the person, and both
> used language that would raise eyebrows today. The solution, I
> believe, is not to condemn the work, but to read it with historical
> perspective.
Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized. I, fortunately,
have an earlier edition, which I have read for my own pleasure, my
children's pleasure and my grandchildren's pleasure for 50 years. Not one
of us has been dragged off to perdition by Lofting's choice of epithets.
Andrew Bones Simpson
> Andrew Bones Simpson <bonesm...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> rec.arts.books.tolkien:
> >Now I know many people will not agree with me on this, but it is my
> >opinion that the racial slur should also be taught in school, many
> >times over. Then the word doesn't become a forbidden term, it's just
> >another word.
>
> I used to think so too. But an episode of /Boston Public/ earlier
> this year, where a teacher did just that, changed my mind.
>
> On the other hand, I hold very strongly that we should not change
> literary works to suit the fashions of the day. For example,
> /Huckleberry Finn/ and /The Lord of the Rings/ were both products of
> their times, and both had profound respect for the person, and both
> used language that would raise eyebrows today. The solution, I
> believe, is not to condemn the work, but to read it with historical
> perspective.
I completely agree with your second point.
As for your first comment, I'm not sure which episode of Boston Public
you're referring to (I've actually never seen the show), but what was
it about, and how did a TV show affect your opinion so much? I don't
want to just blatantly disagree with you since I haven't seen the
show, and since who knows what would actually happen if someone did
that in real life, but I just want to say that TV is one thing and
real life is another. I just finished high school not long ago (it's
a high school in the show, right?), and I think that sort of thing
would be embraced. Actually! Wait a minute, we did something like
this in the beginning of junior year! I forgot - the teacher was
black, and had the kids tell him all the offensive words we could
think of. The n-word was up there, along with "spic," "kike", etc. I
have to admit that I don't remember what the exact point was, but
people seemed to really enjoy it, and there was a feeling of "who
cares?" after all the words had been brought out in the open. It was
like I was saying - their power had been lessened when exposed. My
school was about half black and a third jewish.
I don't want to write too much again ;)
Andrew
C. M. Malm
hand and typed:
>Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized. I, fortunately,
>have an earlier edition, which I have read for my own pleasure, my
>children's pleasure and my grandchildren's pleasure for 50 years. Not one
>of us has been dragged off to perdition by Lofting's choice of epithets.
Woooo hoooo! Another Dolittle fan!
I, too, read the original versions of all the books, and was appalled
when I found out that the newer versions had been expurgated...with
Lofting's son's blessing no less! Nor is it a matter of merely
excising or replacing "forbidden" words; an entire CHAPTER of _The
Story of Doctor Dolittle_ has been completely rewritten from scratch
to avoid having the black prince wishing to be white so that he can
become a fairy tale knight and win the Sleeping Beauty. The fact that,
in the original, the whole tone of the passage and the whole attitude
of the Doctor implies that this wish (to be white instead of black) is
actually an unfortunate product of white people's racism, seems to
have escaped the expurgators. Many of the drawings have been taken out
as well, on the grounds that they lampoon black people. Too bad the
expugators didn't look at ALL the pictures--Lofting lampoons
EVERYBODY.
I did find a recently printed version of _The Story of Doctor
Dolittle_ that reproduced the original text. The running out of
copyright can be such a nice thing....
Cee
---
remove spamblocker to reply
"It is not our part here to take thought only for a season,
or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world.
We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not
hope to make one."
"In all the long wars with the Dark Tower
treason has ever been our greatest foe."
- Gandalf (The Fellowship of the Ring)
Dragan Cvetkovic
> Eric San Juan wrote:
>
> > The last paragraph in the article I linked to in starting this thread
> > cites the incident. Punch the information into a search engine and
> > you'll find some news stories on it in less than five minutes.
>
> Here's one:
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/jan99/district27.htm
>
Thanks Flame.
SMGCFAM
>Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized
A few years ago I visited the Thorton W. Burgess Museum in Sandwich,
Massachusetts. For those of you who don't know, he wrote, among other things,
children's stories about Cape Cod wild life. He used the name Peter Rabbit,
probably taking it from Beatrix Potter, but also wrote stories about Reddy Fox,
Jimmy Skunk, Johnny Chuck, etc. Two of his characters were Uncle Bill 'Possum
and Old Mistah Buzzard--he had both of these characters speak in a written
dialect similar to the characters in Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories.
In the museum, or on a sheet that I used as a guide these two characters were
sort of apologized for as representing African-American stereotypes which was
common around the turn of the century. I assume they were referring to the
peculiarly phonetic dialogue with which they were made to speak. A few years
later I was reading a number of short stories in a 19th century 10 volume
series called "Stories by American Authors" published in the 1880's by
Scribners. I had found the series in a used book store. What was interesting
is that there were several stories about the south and in one a white, poor,
uneducated southerner was made to speak in the same dialect as the Joel
Chandler Harris characters and the Thorton W. Burgess characters--not
necessarily a racial, but rather a class distinction being made. I wonder if
Burgess was just trying to capture a supposed southern dialect in his two
animal characters? I wonder if the original intent of this type of written
attempt at dialect was originally an attempt at class rather than racial
distinction?
AC
> Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized.
We live in a world where the banning of Huckleberry Finn has never stopped
in the nearly 120 years since it was first published.
--
AC
the softrat
<<snip>>
>I wonder if
>Burgess was just trying to capture a supposed southern dialect in his two
>animal characters? I wonder if the original intent of this type of written
>attempt at dialect was originally an attempt at class rather than racial
>distinction?
AFAIK, abso-damn-lutely. Most of the PC'ism, originating from
*anywhere* are just reflections of the ignorance of the PC-pushers.
Po' Suth'n fo'k spoke laak po' Suth'n fo'k, white, black, or green!
(They larnt it from each other!)
If Blacks have any claim to an English-derived language 'of their
own', it arose in northern city black ghettos, not in the South. (And,
yes, I know about Gullah. It's an old Afro-English creole. There are
others.)
the softrat "He who rubs owls"
the Zulu Princess
mailto:sof...@pobox.com
--
_The_ morally smug elitist snob
(and 'insufferably arrogant', too)
pmhi...@mfx.net
> On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 20:15:58 GMT, pmhi...@mfx.net took keyboard in
> hand and typed:
>
> >Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized. I, fortunately,
> >have an earlier edition, which I have read for my own pleasure, my
> >children's pleasure and my grandchildren's pleasure for 50 years. Not one
> >of us has been dragged off to perdition by Lofting's choice of epithets.
>
> Woooo hoooo! Another Dolittle fan!
>
> I, too, read the original versions of all the books, and was appalled
> when I found out that the newer versions had been expurgated...--Lofting
> lampoons
> EVERYBODY.
>
Then there's Walt Kelly, my absolute favoritest cartoonist & satirist (perhaps
equal to Carl Barks) who took on just about everybody, not the most lofty
excepted, and had his Okeefenokee crowd & their cracker English show us ALL
just how thoroughly clay our feet are. He was sometimes criticized for his
choice of target but never for his method of mangling the good ole mother
tongue as his means of pricking the baloon of pomposity.
Pete
--
Don't ask the barber whether
you need a haircut.
D. S. Greenberg
Boris Badenov
|Then there's Walt Kelly, my absolute favoritest cartoonist & satirist (perhaps
|equal to Carl Barks) who took on just about everybody, not the most lofty
|excepted, and had his Okeefenokee crowd & their cracker English show us ALL
|just how thoroughly clay our feet are. He was sometimes criticized for his
|choice of target but never for his method of mangling the good ole mother
|tongue as his means of pricking the baloon of pomposity.
We have found the enemy, and he is .. US!
Dragan Cvetkovic
> "C. M. Malm" wrote:
>
> > On Sun, 08 Sep 2002 20:15:58 GMT, pmhi...@mfx.net took keyboard in
> > hand and typed:
> >
> > >Even the venerable Doctor Dolittle has been baudlerized. I, fortunately,
> > >have an earlier edition, which I have read for my own pleasure, my
> > >children's pleasure and my grandchildren's pleasure for 50 years. Not one
> > >of us has been dragged off to perdition by Lofting's choice of epithets.
[Sorry to followup here, but I couldn't get the original article from
pmhi...@mfx.net anymore].
OK, I give up: what does "baudlerized" mean (couldn't find it in my
dictionaries) and does it have anything to do with (e.g.) Charles
Baudelaire (the name phonetically the closest to the above (mysterious)
word)? I have found a couple (9 to be precise) references on google for
"baudlerized" but they use the word and assume you already know what it
means.
Thanks in advance.
Liz Broadwell
>OK, I give up: what does "baudlerized" mean (couldn't find it in my
>dictionaries)
That's because it's actually spelled "bowdlerize" and means to
expurgate. It comes from the action of one Dr. T. Bowdler, who in the
early nineteenth century published an edition of Shakespeare, "in which
those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be
read aloud in a family" (as he said in his preface).
Peace,
Liz
--
Elizabeth Broadwell (ebroadwe at dept dot english dot upenn dot edu)
of the Department of English and Van Pelt-Dietrich Library
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you
give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judge-
ment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." -- J.R.R. Tolkien
Dragan Cvetkovic
> In article <lmwupsi...@lokrum.tht.net>, Dragan Cvetkovic wrote:
> >OK, I give up: what does "baudlerized" mean (couldn't find it in my
> >dictionaries)
>
> That's because it's actually spelled "bowdlerize" and means to
> expurgate. It comes from the action of one Dr. T. Bowdler, who in the
> early nineteenth century published an edition of Shakespeare, "in which
> those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be
> read aloud in a family" (as he said in his preface).
>
> Peace,
> Liz
I see. Thanks Liz, it was very helpful.
Bye, Dragan
Trevor Barrie
Dragan Cvetkovic <dcvet...@gmx.net> wrote:
>OK, I give up: what does "baudlerized" mean (couldn't find it in my
>dictionaries) and does it have anything to do with (e.g.) Charles
>Baudelaire (the name phonetically the closest to the above (mysterious)
>word)? I have found a couple (9 to be precise) references on google for
>"baudlerized" but they use the word and assume you already know what it
>means.
You can't find it because the word is actually "bowdlerized". It means
"expurgated by omitting or modifying words or passages considered
indelicate or offensive; castrated" (paraphrased from the OED). It's
only used disparagingly. Comes from a Dr. Bowdler who produced a
"cleaned up" edition of Shakespeare in the 1800s.
Morthond
(snip)
> While I didn't under stand the bit about the Italians suing Europe
> first, I was just starting to get interested, so yes, please go on.
>
> M.
Well, many reasons:
France´s 23453254235345 invasions, in the 15th century, 18th and 19th centuries
Aragon´s 48949488964 invasions in the 15th century
Spain´s 489494 invasions in the 16th and 17th centuries
Spain´s conquest of the Southern half
The Barbarian hordes´invasions
The Ostrogoths
The Byzantines
Atila the Hun
The Third Reich
etc....
Taunted cheers
Morthond