Racial epithet makes news

[George Thompson]

The change in title of Agatha Christie's novel reminds me of the following:
Some of you will recall the series of "fairy tale" books edited in the late 19th C by Andrew Lang.  There were a dozen or so, all with a color in the title: The Blue Fairy Book, &c.  In the 1960s or 70s the Dover company reprinted them all, by photooffset from copies of the originals.   I bought them all, for my children.
In the 80s I read a review of several of these reprints in one of the bibliographical journals -- of all places.  But because it was in a bibliographical journal, the reviewer noticed and commented on the fact that in one of the tales, the hero, seeking a treasure in gold, or maybe a maiden, was opposed by a guard of horrid ogres.  In the original edition, the guard had been horrid negroes.  Someone at Dover had spotted this, had cut out the word "negroes", cut it into its individual letters, got rid of the "n" and one "e" and rearranged the remaining letters to make "ogres", while adjusting the spacing of the letters to conceal the fact that "ogres" was 2 letters shorter than the word replaced.

This review would have been in either PBSA (Papers of the Bibliographic Society of America) or The Library (the English equivalent).

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton3 at VIRGINMEDIA.COM>
Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2010 10:30 am
Subject: Re: Racial epithet makes news
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail
> > header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Baker, John M." <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: Racial epithet makes news
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ...
> >        I think there is an interesting question, though, as to what
> > extent an otherwise offensive term is ameliorated by its use in a set
> > phrase.  Certainly some speakers and writers think that it is:  For
> > example, Agatha Christie on several occasions used the phrase
> "nigger in
> > the woodpile."  I don't know of any other occasions when she used
> > "nigger"; she probably would have thought it inconsistent, when used
> on
> > a stand-alone basis, with the tone she sought.  Contemporary
> editions of
> > her work seem to have the phrase edited out, which would seem to imply
> > that the word retains some measure of its offensive character, even
> when
> > used in a set phrase.
> >
> >
> > John Baker
>
> Well, there's her novel which started life with the title (in 1939) as
> _Ten
> Little Niggers_ before being ameliorated to _Ten Little Indians_
> (sic!) and
> ending as, _And Then There Were None_.
>
> Again, the context isn't entirely straightforward -- the original title
> draws on a counting rhyme (UK only?), and while offensive in the UK,
> "nigger" has (or had) a different semantic spread to that in US English,
> referring to *any non-white figure, rather than specifically African
> American or West Indian.
>
> Possibly marginally related, the English children's author Enid Blyton
> toned
> down the language of Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus tales about Brer
> Rabbit and Brer Fox for an English audience.
>
> Robin
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Jonathan Lighter
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 8:57 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: Racial epithet makes news
> >
> > If I may play the devil's advocate, "Injun" may be rightly offensive
> in
> > ordinary discourse for obvious reasons. That does not entail that the
> > phrase
> > "Honest Injun" is meant to be or should reasonably be understood as
> > offensive.  For critics to jump on Steele with both feet for saying
> > "Honest
> > Injun" and for CNN implicitly to endorse that reaction (when it could
> > have
> > reported it without comment) strikes me as disproportionate to the
> > offense.
> > (Like that matters.)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org