Angelina’s answer to “Does anyone have a copy of this book under the title Ten Little Indians? My mother said that when s…” > Likes and Comments
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I'm curious by your comment. Are you saying the original name should still stand even in today's time?
Censorship to appease someone's sensibilities is wrong, especially with a work this old. Now I don't condone or endorse the use of racial epithets in any manner but I feel censorship is problem. Where do you stop? In practicality changing the title would absolutely soothe any bruised feelings BUT it wouldn't harm the sales and interest in this work as the original title certainly would.
In this case it isn't vital to the plot which characters the 10 figurines depict. They could change it to 10 rubber duckies and the story would still make sense. Changing the title makes this book available for more readers. It is sometimes read in schools, which would be problematic with the original version. But of course we shouldn't forget the original version or pretend it never existed. Many older books go through this process to stay sellable.
I think this is a great discussion. To me, it's just important to be kind, and if all that takes is a change of a single word, why not? And, let's not forget that in a hundred years or so, many of the words we now casually use will be consider offensive: things always change (but stay the same).
This a great discussion I agree with Greg. I also think it depends which country you are from. I am french, this book is called "les dix petits negres" and is still sold with that name. We do not do P.C. as much as you do in US. Maybe we should?
Just say you're a racist Angelina, just say it
Thank God it was changed. The very last thing I want to do in life is subject myself to reading slurs directed at my fellow human beings for an entire book. Pretty sure most decent people feel the same way and publishers actually want sell books. Everyone but the trolls are happy.
My goodness...we should CERTAINLY feel free to call people offensive names...gee whiz...why would anyone have a problem with that??
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Stacey
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Jul 03, 2016 01:08PM
I'm curious by your comment. Are you saying the original name should still stand even in today's time?
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Censorship to appease someone's sensibilities is wrong, especially with a work this old. Now I don't condone or endorse the use of racial epithets in any manner but I feel censorship is problem. Where do you stop? In practicality changing the title would absolutely soothe any bruised feelings BUT it wouldn't harm the sales and interest in this work as the original title certainly would.
In this case it isn't vital to the plot which characters the 10 figurines depict. They could change it to 10 rubber duckies and the story would still make sense. Changing the title makes this book available for more readers. It is sometimes read in schools, which would be problematic with the original version. But of course we shouldn't forget the original version or pretend it never existed. Many older books go through this process to stay sellable.
I think this is a great discussion. To me, it's just important to be kind, and if all that takes is a change of a single word, why not? And, let's not forget that in a hundred years or so, many of the words we now casually use will be consider offensive: things always change (but stay the same).
This a great discussion I agree with Greg. I also think it depends which country you are from. I am french, this book is called "les dix petits negres" and is still sold with that name. We do not do P.C. as much as you do in US. Maybe we should?
Just say you're a racist Angelina, just say it
Thank God it was changed. The very last thing I want to do in life is subject myself to reading slurs directed at my fellow human beings for an entire book. Pretty sure most decent people feel the same way and publishers actually want sell books. Everyone but the trolls are happy.
My goodness...we should CERTAINLY feel free to call people offensive names...gee whiz...why would anyone have a problem with that??
