It feels so out of the blue, so unnecessary. Like the writer had been bored. It’s difficult to imagine that this didn’t jolt readers out of the story, even at the time.
Languages change. Moron, idiot and imbecile used to be medical terms. Gay used to simply mean happy and excited. A fag used to be a term for a cigarette.
I really doubt it would have appeared in a mainstream children’s book if it were seen as at all offensive.
Words like “bugger” and “damn” used to be extremely offensive curses. Now they’re often used as very mild expressions of annoyance to avoid using the serious ones.
Exactly. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring again, and it takes some getting used to that “queer” is used in a completely different way than nowadays.
Weren’t idiot, moron and imbecile medical terms specifically used by white scientists to describe black people back in the good old eugenics days of the 1920’s America? Language changes sure but it often has very racist roots.
I mean… there’s also a famous Agatha Christie’s book that used to have the N-word in its title.
We’re viewing these things with our modern eyes. But they didn’t have this kind of sensibility those days. It probably felt like using any other word: normal.
I wonder if our grandchildren will feel the same way about something we say normally today.
I doubt whether the vast majority of British readers would’ve been jolted by it - at the time of first publication. It was a word that had been in everyday parlance that got attached to dark “things” as a describer.
Here’s the thing though, go forward maybe 15 years again and you have the 1964 Smethwick constituency election. The winner had a, uhh, memorable slogan: “If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour.”
It’s worth noting that the “n*****s” in question were, most likely, gonna be from the Punjab. Go figure.
So, yeah, in less than a generation the word in question went from everyday speech with no overt pejorative meaning to the explicitly racist word it is today. It morphed.
I mean I’m terrible with names but like, skin tones vary. Go back three generations and my great grandparents look very different from each other, only one of them is all that white but godsdammit they are the whitest shade of white that ever whited white. Albinos put on sunglasses when I walk by, I inherited it somehow from gamgam. You’d think it would have been recessive not dominant but here we are. I blame all the cheese we eat, gamgam loved cheese like I love cheese.
If you have never actually seen a person with dark skin that’s how you might imagine one. Or so I did when I was a kid, growing up in a bunghole village in the impenetrable forests up in northern europe where the darkest skin I’d seen was that greek girl (not very dark at all).
My friend is also charcoal black, so that’s definitely a possibility too, human skin is amazing, it can be black-blueish, chocolate, white or red (me in the summer).
I’m just spitballing here but maybe back in the 1950s and earlier there wasn’t as much mixed race couples or children from those interracial marriages? Like today we have so many shades of “black” that maybe wasn’t as popular nearly 100 years ago.
While skin tones can vary, and in sun drenched parts of Africa, tones can get so dark brown that they look charcoal in appearance, It was just the book being written by a white man, for white kids, in an country where 99% were white that caused them to make the unwarranted comparison.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
For the lazy who don’t want to look it up
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WesternInfidels@feddit.online 3 weeks ago
It feels so out of the blue, so unnecessary. Like the writer had been bored. It’s difficult to imagine that this didn’t jolt readers out of the story, even at the time.
merc@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Languages change. Moron, idiot and imbecile used to be medical terms. Gay used to simply mean happy and excited. A fag used to be a term for a cigarette.
I really doubt it would have appeared in a mainstream children’s book if it were seen as at all offensive.
Words like “bugger” and “damn” used to be extremely offensive curses. Now they’re often used as very mild expressions of annoyance to avoid using the serious ones.
FishFace@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Fag still is a term for a cigarette…
gerryflap@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Exactly. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring again, and it takes some getting used to that “queer” is used in a completely different way than nowadays.
DamienGramatacus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Weren’t idiot, moron and imbecile medical terms specifically used by white scientists to describe black people back in the good old eugenics days of the 1920’s America? Language changes sure but it often has very racist roots.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
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the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Buggery used to be a crime, now it’s a gay way to spend an afternoon
SaraTonin@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Enid Blyton used it a surprising amount. But she was also considered old-fashioned and racist by critics at the time, so…
fartographer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“Bah humbug,” was that era’s equivalent of Scrooge wandering around saying, “whatever, bullshit.”
Scrollone@feddit.it 3 weeks ago
I mean… there’s also a famous Agatha Christie’s book that used to have the N-word in its title.
We’re viewing these things with our modern eyes. But they didn’t have this kind of sensibility those days. It probably felt like using any other word: normal.
I wonder if our grandchildren will feel the same way about something we say normally today.
zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
until 1985!
Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I doubt whether the vast majority of British readers would’ve been jolted by it - at the time of first publication. It was a word that had been in everyday parlance that got attached to dark “things” as a describer.
Here’s the thing though, go forward maybe 15 years again and you have the 1964 Smethwick constituency election. The winner had a, uhh, memorable slogan: “If you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour.”
It’s worth noting that the “n*****s” in question were, most likely, gonna be from the Punjab. Go figure.
So, yeah, in less than a generation the word in question went from everyday speech with no overt pejorative meaning to the explicitly racist word it is today. It morphed.
zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It was England, which never treated the n-world quite like those ungrateful colonials.
JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It was called out for being offensive even in that time by fellow English.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
I mean it is from 1951. I’ve seen a lot worse by people who meant it.
It’s 4 years before Emmett Till was murdered for example.
Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I wonder if Carlin ever tried sneaking that past the censors.
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
George Carlin was voicing Mr Conductor in the American dubs in the 1990s, so a solid 20 years after the retraction
HikingVet@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I don’t remember him really weighing in on that word. And if I’m not mistaken he was friends with Richard Pryor.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I genuinely don’t even understand what this means. Black people aren’t charcoal black.
OwOarchist@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
According to old-timey racists, they are.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Exactly … according to old-timey racists in the 1950s … this is what they imagined about black people
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HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I mean I’m terrible with names but like, skin tones vary. Go back three generations and my great grandparents look very different from each other, only one of them is all that white but godsdammit they are the whitest shade of white that ever whited white. Albinos put on sunglasses when I walk by, I inherited it somehow from gamgam. You’d think it would have been recessive not dominant but here we are. I blame all the cheese we eat, gamgam loved cheese like I love cheese.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
In the 1950s … to average white people who might have never seen a black person before … they would imagine this
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arrow74@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I can promise you that the vast majority of white Americans had seen a black person in the 1950s.
Midnight1938@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
Remember the meme about the guy being immune to BnW filter?
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Alright, that’s actually pretty funny.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
If you have never actually seen a person with dark skin that’s how you might imagine one. Or so I did when I was a kid, growing up in a bunghole village in the impenetrable forests up in northern europe where the darkest skin I’d seen was that greek girl (not very dark at all).
My friend is also charcoal black, so that’s definitely a possibility too, human skin is amazing, it can be black-blueish, chocolate, white or red (me in the summer).
Pixel_Jock_17@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m just spitballing here but maybe back in the 1950s and earlier there wasn’t as much mixed race couples or children from those interracial marriages? Like today we have so many shades of “black” that maybe wasn’t as popular nearly 100 years ago.
Just a random thought
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
While skin tones can vary, and in sun drenched parts of Africa, tones can get so dark brown that they look charcoal in appearance, It was just the book being written by a white man, for white kids, in an country where 99% were white that caused them to make the unwarranted comparison.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Outdated but not offensive, a lot better than it could have been.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
I’m too lazy even for this. I need a red circle and perhaps some Family Guy to get my attention.
Oka@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Last word
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Ahh yes, the famous last word.