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New edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the N-word
CNN ^ | January 5, 2011 | Keith Staskiewicz

Posted on 01/05/2011 7:02:51 AM PST by Huck

Edited on 01/05/2011 7:05:47 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books' upcoming edition of Mark Twain's seminal novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will remove all instances of the N-word -- I'll give you a hint, it's not nonesuch -- present in the text and replace it with slave.


(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alangribben; auburnuniversity; blackkk; censorship; dixie; huckfinn; huckleberryfinn; literature; marktwain; nword; pages; purge; samclemens; samuelclemens; tomsawyer; twain; yesterdayonfr
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This makes me physically ill. I really despise humanity these days. I despise our culture. I despise the prevailing mode of thought. I deeply, truly, and completely HATE and REJECT the ways of the world. Sick, sick, sick.
1 posted on 01/05/2011 7:02:56 AM PST by Huck
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To: Admin Moderator

Sorry, I messed up the title...could you please fix?

Should read: “New edition of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ to lose the N-word”


2 posted on 01/05/2011 7:04:21 AM PST by Huck (Do talk radio hosts get paid extra when they use the word "impugn"? It sure seems like it.)
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To: Huck

Other articles about it

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=edition


3 posted on 01/05/2011 7:06:09 AM PST by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: Huck

I’ve sent my response:

agribben@aum.edu


4 posted on 01/05/2011 7:12:27 AM PST by Wonder Warthog
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To: Huck

Nothing like rewriting the clasics. who know’s? One day Ahab may kill and eat Moby Dick.


5 posted on 01/05/2011 7:15:25 AM PST by Venturer
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To: Huck

But what about all the people who find the word ‘slave’ offensive!?
This is slavebaiting, plain and simple! I’m outraged!


6 posted on 01/05/2011 7:16:03 AM PST by ozark hilljilly (Y'all had enough, yet?)
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To: Huck

Hating reality seems like such a waste of time and effort.


7 posted on 01/05/2011 7:31:02 AM PST by stuartcr (When politicians politicize issues, aren't they just doing their job?)
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To: ozark hilljilly

If the N-word is so bad why do blacks keep using it???.The new issue of the race card (slavebaiting) fails to tell how blacks also OWNED slaves,guesss they will get back to on that issue?.


8 posted on 01/05/2011 7:40:35 AM PST by Vaduz
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To: Huck

More than a little silly.

But, in partial defense of the bowdlerizers, the word in question has changed considerably in meaning since Twain used it.


9 posted on 01/05/2011 7:41:31 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Huck

NewSouth Books is a ninth-rate small publisher based in Alabama. OBVIOUSLY they are both looking for some publicity
AND trying to cash in on what they see as the ‘trend’ of increasing numbers of schools’ being amenable to the idea of altering these classics so as to be in the vanguard of PC. The mere act of issuing an edition without the N word or the word Injun presupposes there will be enough schools and students who these books can be disseminated to to make it worth their while to put out this PC alteration.
It’s a stupid gamble, since they’re “answering a need”, as they see it, but also trying to FOSTER a continuing need, by letting it be known that THEIR editions are there for any school that wants to buy them.And on top of all that, they need to MAKE MONEY ON IT.
Hard to imagine they’ll make anything on this enterprise, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the long arm of the Obama Administration or its surrogates somewhere in this, helping out with some secret or indirect funding.
NO REPUTABLE PUBLISHER would ever do this to an American Classic like Huck Finn.
THIS is a publisher whose audience is PC School Boards, Administrations, and the ‘vulnerable’ young students they tell you they are trying to ‘protect’ from ‘troublesome’, ‘out-of-date’ words, which they think are explosive now, 125 years later, but weren’t then.


10 posted on 01/05/2011 7:46:17 AM PST by supremedoctrine (Come closer. I want to get a better look at you.)
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To: Huck

It will not be Huck Finn... it will be something else.

LLS


11 posted on 01/05/2011 7:51:35 AM PST by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!)
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To: Huck

This is silly. However, the book will be a 1/3 shorter ;)


12 posted on 01/05/2011 7:52:04 AM PST by DCBryan1 (FORGET the lawyers...first kill the "journalists". (Die Ritter der Kokosnuss))
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To: Sherman Logan

See my reply # 10 following yours.Of course,
The word has changed in meaning since it was first used in Huckleberry Finn, but that’s not what’s on the agenda of the Publishers or the people they’re intending to serve.
Chances are very high that changing the N-word to ‘slave’ will NOT go unnoticed by any kid reading this word, thereby backfiring, and HEIGHTENING the fact that the N-word was used all those years ago. So they tend to wind up in the same place intellectually as if they’d just been given the original version to read. THIS time, though, they’ve had a little detour on the road to Political Correctness they didn’t need, and probably would laugh at once it becomes clear to them.


13 posted on 01/05/2011 7:53:53 AM PST by supremedoctrine (Come closer. I want to get a better look at you.)
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To: Huck

Wonder what Samuel Langhorne Clemens would have to say about this.


14 posted on 01/05/2011 8:13:13 AM PST by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country! What else needs said?)
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To: Huck

“Never let your schoolin’ interfere with your education”.


15 posted on 01/05/2011 8:15:39 AM PST by kcat
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To: Huck

This is garbage.

The juxtaposition of the character’s derogatory name, “Nigger Jim”, with his absolutely saintly character, gives the book punch. Twain was a masterful writer; these morons want to emasculate him.


16 posted on 01/05/2011 8:16:31 AM PST by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
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To: supremedoctrine
This makes me physically ill.

NewSouth Books is a ninth-rate small publisher based in Alabama. OBVIOUSLY they are both looking for some publicity AND trying to cash in on what they see as the ‘trend’ ... And on top of all that, they need to MAKE MONEY ON IT.

Oh no, capitalism. It's not like this is the first classic to be expurgated for use in schools. I thought FR was in favor of letting people make a buck.

17 posted on 01/05/2011 8:16:49 AM PST by wideminded
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To: SandRat
Wonder what Samuel Langhorne Clemens would have to say about this.

He'd probably show up on the publisher's doorstep- with a shotgun!

18 posted on 01/05/2011 8:20:27 AM PST by JimRed (Excising a cancer before it kills us waters the Tree of Liberty too! TERM LIMITS, NOW AND FOREVER!)
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To: wideminded

That’s only if it’s something a freeper likes.


19 posted on 01/05/2011 8:24:48 AM PST by stuartcr (When politicians politicize issues, aren't they just doing their job?)
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To: Huck
In that case I suppose that we should go ofter Ernest Gaines for using that same word in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman.”
20 posted on 01/05/2011 8:29:21 AM PST by Brucifer (Proud member of the Double Secret Reloading Underground.)
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