Farewell to the awful swotters, dirty tinkers and jolly japes: Enid Blyton's language is being dragged out of the 1940s by her publisher in an attempt to give her books greater appeal for today's children.I disagree.
Starting next month with 10 Famous Five novels, Hodder is "sensitively and carefully" revising Blyton's text after research with children and parents showed that the author's old-fashioned language and dated expressions were preventing young readers from enjoying the stories. The narrative of the novels will remain the same, but expressions such as "mercy me!" have been changed to "oh no!", "fellow" to "old man" and "it's all very peculiar" to "it's all very strange".
Other changes include "housemistress" becoming "teacher", "awful swotter" becoming "bookworm", "mother and father" becoming "mum and dad", "school tunic" becoming "uniform" and Dick's comment that "she must be jolly lonely all by herself" being changed to "she must get lonely all by herself"...
Tony Summerfield, who runs the Enid Blyton Society, said he was "thoroughly against unnecessary changes just for the sake of it, from adults who underestimate the intelligence of children"...
Bestselling children's author Andy Briggs, who is writing a children's series bringing Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan into the 21st century, approved of the changes. "It's an unfortunate necessity," he said. "The classic books we were brought up on – the Famous Five, Tarzan, Sherlock Homes – need to be updated. Language just changes, it evolves, and the problem is if we don't evolve with it, then the new generation of kids is not going to have anything to relate to. When these books were published, 'jeepers' and 'golly gosh' was modern slang. It makes perfect sense to update the language."
25 July 2010
Famous books are being re-edited for today's youth
By substituting modern terms for outdated ones, children will no longer be challenged to learn new words...
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"I disagree." I hope vehemently so.
ReplyDeleteI disagree too.
ReplyDeleteAn important thing for us all to learn is that language changes, especially the language of slang and "street talk". For me this is exactly the reason that classic books should retain classic language. It helps everyone to be aware that our word usage does not have any privileged place.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this what FOOTNOTES are for???
ReplyDeleteLurker111
Load of cobblers! These old texts stimulate the mind and brain, children need to enquire, learn. I propose that any child that does not enjoy such a book, will not enjoy it when it is edited either.
ReplyDeleteAnd we wonder, Is our children learning?
ReplyDeleteI disagree as well. I even got a bunch of students to quit using profanity when I suggested using archaic euphemisms such as dag nab it!, Consarn it! They competed to see who could come up with the most colorfularchaism. And these were inner city minority kids.
ReplyDelete"To be or not to be" -- what's that all about? Maybe we should just change it to, "I don't know, I think I oughtta like kill myself."
ReplyDeleteAnd "Whether it be nobler in the mind . . ." could easily be: "Life is so like hard. So so freaking hard."
Now that's booklearning
This is terrible! How can we urge young readers to guess meaning from context and simultaneously edit out words they could guess in this manner? In addition, part of what I loved about reading classics was the old-fashioned expressions I'd pick up. I hate that readers will be deprived of this joy. A disappointing decision all around.
ReplyDeleteThis is terrible! How can we urge young readers to guess meaning from context and simultaneously edit out words they could guess in this manner? In addition, part of what I loved about reading classics was the old-fashioned expressions I'd pick up. I hate that readers will be deprived of this joy. A disappointing decision all around.
ReplyDeleteWow, what utter balderdash. Author NEW books if one wishes to incorporate modern language or publish with footnotes but leave the original works intact.
ReplyDeleteI moved 2,000 miles cross country to help my brother with his three children after his wife left. The oldest girl was as voracious a reader as I was at her age, but the youngest was struggling with basic reading comprehension. I specifically used classics to challenge her and entertain her. We read Alice in Wonderland and the Fairy Rebel; within about two months of me starting with her she went from a 1st grade to 4th grade level comprehension. That makes me a permanent convert to the idea that kids are much more intelligent and desiring of being challenged than we give them credit for.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, too. Kids can pick up the meaning of words from context, and if they don't know them, they can find out. Other expressions will make them laugh, but that's okay, too. I read almost all of Enid Blyton's books when I was young and loved the flow of the language. The sample sentences and expressions that have been "modernized" sound very boring and ordinary to me. The story was what counted then and still does.
ReplyDeleteBesides, it sounds more like they are trying to make these British stories suit an American audience than anything else.
I fail to understand how this could possibly *help* kids.
ReplyDeleteIt saddens me that future generations won't get to puzzle over 'blanc mange' or 'celluloid' or 'isinglass'... how sad that they'll miss out on 'half hols' and 'flats' and similar. So much that's fascinating and wonderful and a link to the past and they won't have that. What a shame.
ReplyDeletehttp://xkcd.com/771/
ReplyDeletePerhaps we're worrying needlessly.