***By Dominic Penna, the Telegraph’s Political Reporter:***
Downing Street has warned so-called sensitivity readers not to “gobble funk around with words” as it joined criticism of the rewriting of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books.
The remarks reference a language spoken by the title character in The Big Friendly Giant, one of the most popular characters in Dahl’s work, as No 10 warned against “airbrushing” his texts.
On Friday, The Telegraph revealed staff at the publisher Puffin have made hundreds of changes to Dahl’s original texts in new versions, removing many of his colourful descriptions and making characters less grotesque.
Asked about the subsequent row, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the Prime Minister agrees with the BFG that you shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words.
“It is important that works of literature, works of fiction, are preserved and not airbrushed.”
In the BFG, the titular protagonists warns “don’t gobblefunk around with words”, while Susan Rennie, the chief editor of the Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary, has said that to “gobblefunk with words” means to “play around with them and invent new words or meanings”.
Changes made by Puffin to the work of Dahl, who died in 1990, included removing the words “black” and “white”, meaning the BFG can no longer wear a black cloak, as well as heavily altered references to characters’ physical appearances.
Literary backlash
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oompa-Loompas are no longer “tiny” and have gone from being “small men” to “small people”, while the word “fat” has been removed as a reference to August Gloop, who is now described as “enormous”.
Puffin insisted its used sensitivity readers so the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, but the edits were met with a backlash from giants of the creative and literary worlds.
Sir Salman Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses was banned in 45 Islamic countries, wrote on Twitter: “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
Brian Cox, the actor, told Times Radio the books should be left alone and branded Puffin’s actions “disgraceful” as he compared woke culture to McCarthyism.
Mr Sunak made free speech a defining platform of his leadership campaign last summer, as he pledged to “safeguard our shared cultural, historical and philosophical heritage”.
Addressing Tory activists in July, he vowed to crack down on “Left-wing agitators” who he said were intent on “rewriting the English language so we can’t even use words like ‘man’ ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ without being told we’re offending someone”.
He also criticised the “Lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women”.
Whatever you think about this, what does it have to do with him?
The people who own the IP to the books decided to make a change to the books. They can do that. What does it have to do with the Prime Minister?
Except that it is yet another supposed “culture war” issue to jump on, of course.
I’m glad our Prime Minister is at last focusing on one of the most important pressing issues facing our society today: gobblefunking around with words.
The main but I don’t understand is why they replaced Matilda reading Joseph Conrad with Jane Austen ?
>Brian Cox, the actor, told Times Radio “…the books were a wonder of the universe, I flew here, to South America, courtesy of the BBC License payer just to say this” “Wait, we said Brian Cox the actor” “Oh, no, I’m Brian Cox the Physicist and keyboard player from D:Ream – I’ll fly straight home”
I dont know why it involves the PM but its a horrific idea.
Whoever these sensitivity readers were should be ashamed of themselves.
We going to paint clothes on works of art of naked people next?
i think it’s interesting that these books are being edited in order to prevent children from the negative influence of “offensive” words when the same people offended grew up with them and were able to understand that they’re not things to necessarily describe someone in real life as? children are capable of discerning right from wrong and the books are harmless
Phillip Pullman’s comments miss the mark. He says Roald Dahl can defend himself. Roald Dahl is a bit dead for that.
What does he think of the idea of some professional morality police waiting until he dies then doing a hackjob on “His Dark Materials” and re-releasing it as “Their Materials”?
I would be interesting to see what he said if he was asked if publishers should reinstate the bit about he Oompa Loompas being African Pigmies who were ‘imported’ by Wonker from ‘deepest Africa’ and who are paid only in chocolate. Presumably that would be a bad thing?
Edit: just to be clear, I am not particularly in favour of changing the language in this case, just that I don’t see anything intrinstically wrong with changing outdated language, which is what Rishi seems to be arguing here.
Lee Anderson saying the Tories need to fight the next election on their own invention of Culture Wars is fucking vile and Sunak using a pithy dogwhistle to that wing of the party…
Absolutely noone has asked the publishers to do this. They are doing it off their own back to maximise sales of their books because they are worried the existing language will put off future readers. Dahl himself participated in rewrites back in the 60s/70s to modernise the books and remove racist language.
Can you argue that publishers shouldn’t do this and should let the original text stand and the book live or die on it’s own merits? Absolutely.
Is any of this to do with any sort woke conspiracy? Nope.
When normal people talk about the current Tory Party, very few of their words are publishable, so perhaps Rishi Sunak should shift his attention to finding out what’s behind their ever increasing hostility.
Being 61, I’ve read all of Roald Dahls books, met him several times…..lovely gentle man……and I managed to grow up without being a racist. In fact fact no “-ist” at all.
Did I misunderstand the books?
However, The books did give me good references for the potential of ugliness and hate beneath a ‘lovely’ exterior…..or greed, avarice, lack of trust, unfairness. Which has actually made me able to be able to understand the bullshit of the skin-deep caring, sharing and inclusivity claimed by so many now.
The Twits is a great book…..maybe parents should try reading it TO their children and explaining what it is about, rather than selecting ‘bad’ words.
I also read all the classics…..I’ll class Brer Rabbit as a classic….even Enid Blyton….and didn’t come out with a twisted sense of entitlement or hate.
2 billion missing form ppe contracts and you know who is at fault in your government, but noo lets talk about kids books.
For those who dont speak Indian, he means “Fword around with words.”
Minor changes that are almost unnoticeable. Dahl himself made changes to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Great Glass Elevator and Danny Champion of the World after they were published.
Chances are nobody would notice if the right wing media hadn’t latched onto this.
TLDR: I agree, puffin are idiots (or clever look at us all talking about it), airbrushing is bad no matter the context, let’s keep repeating history, maybe next time we’ll learn (probably not). Works of art are often restored but never deliberately altered why treat artistic literature any differently.
“When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the Prime Minister agrees with the BFG that you shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words. It is important that works of literature, works of fiction, are preserved and not airbrushed.”
I do agree, surely if we keep trying to hide who we were, who our ancestors were and how we as a society used to behave and the ills that came from it we are doomed to repeat the past?
I couldn’t imagine reading Of Mice and Men without the references of the *n word (assuming I can’t say it in a subreddit) and descriptions of the disabled having nearly as much influence without them. Sure in classes asked to read aloud it feels excruciating as you’re sat in a room of classmates from various backgrounds with various disabilities and ethnicities, and it should, that’s perfect, that’s your mind realising “fuck how was this OK” and shows how far as a society we have come.
Don’t airbrush anything, show it off and show how we’ve developed from then, compare past to present.
The changes described seem to be that of gender equality, nuclear family adjustments and body shaming? Why exclude the fact we used to be rather homophobic, misogynistic and particularly evil to anyone who looked different, we were, some still are, it’s by no means a perfect world and some children’s books should show that… And some show that it is, and it can be better, but Roald Dahl isnt the only children’s author and was very much a product of his time, something to look back at and say this is what we used to be isn’t that strange.
there’s plenty of children’s authors out there some are exceptionally good at showing inclusivity to the weird and wonderful, look at many of the young children’s books from Dolly Parton’s library foundation over the years some of which highlight societal issues (my daddies, publisher puffin), environmental issues (clean up, publisher puffin).
Despite the author Harry Potter highlights the issues of judging people based on uncontrollable aspects (mudbloods vs purebloods vs muggles). If you’re looking for fantasy fiction on how judgemental society can be along the same vein as Harry Potter, Darren Shan and Derek Landy both do so in their own way with their Cirque du Freak and Skulduggery Pleasant collections. Ofc there’s Jacqueline Wilson on issues such as adoption and fostering as well as the judgement from society towards the disabled.
All of the above are in the same age group roughly as Roald Dahl, all more evolved over the years and more relevant depictions of modern society, I’m sure there are some released more recent that I don’t know about.
He is so desperate for notoriety unconnected to how shit of a job he’s doing and how ruinous and corrupt his party is. It’s so obvious that one hopes journalists will turn it into a story about how weak and desperate he is.
Was about to post on this myself then saw this here.
Who are these people that seem to think we all live on an agreeable world?
The part they changed on The Witches is in no way of a child’s intelligence to understand.
Children say words without thinking it might upset or insult anyone.
Saying this, to indicate a “fat” kid to an “enormous” kid sounds more insulting than in first place.
Top it all off, fucking non-binary twats wants Oompa Loompas now ‘small people’ not small men.
It’s got Sam Smith written all over it! Bald, fat, men, certainly touches a nerve in his body.
No matter of Rishi Sunik Prime Minister involved, glad someone in power has spoken out to this out of control rule makers.
Surprised King Charles hasn’t spoken out.
What next, Roald Dahl was a pervert or a slave trader?
101 opinions (currently) by people who feel entitled to express their opinions online, most of which are berating the PM for expressing an opinion on something.
Can’t wait till these arseh0les are out of power, two more years.
“*Publishing company makes stupid decision which nobody asked for – clearly this is an issue for the Head of Government*”
It’s amazing how easily people get worked up into a little red-faced tizzy about this asinine ‘*culture war*’ bullshit. No wonder the right are leaning on it like a man with one leg blown off.
Why don’t the tories stop gobblefunking around with the country
I don’t give a shit what Rishi thinks. He’s a feckless idiot like his predecessors and hiding behind blatant culture war bullshit. Go govern the country you useless piece of shit.
I read the headline and thought this was satire from newsthump.
We need to revert back to the original where the Oompa-Loompa’s were black pigmies from somewhere in Africa and smuggled over to England in crates.
Can politicians stay tf out of this and focus on doing their job?
“Talking nonsense rubbish worked for Boris, maybe it’ll distract people from Aprils increase in energy tax” he said, pulling his silly hat and high vis jacket out of the Amazon delivery pouch. “Now, lets go get photographed failing to operate some kind of big machinery!”
Like everything woke this is an open goal for the Tories.
To be added to the already long list of dead-cat subjects.
Netflix now own the Roald Dahl Story Company so it’s 100% a corporate “ass-covering” incase someone in middle-America gets mildly offended by a story calling someone ugly, or using the word “queer” in it’s traditional sense because god forbid it cause them a scandal before they launch new movies or TV shows.
The changes are insane and ignore a lot of context, and are implemented with all the care of a sledgehammer circumcision to be compatible with corpo-speak
Says the guy that looks like a Quentin Blake illustration.
It’s just his PR team trying to make him seem like he’s familiar with the Zeitgeist. I’d bet he’s never read Roald Dhal book in his life
Oh god! hes trying to boris! And failing miserably at it
33 comments
***By Dominic Penna, the Telegraph’s Political Reporter:***
Downing Street has warned so-called sensitivity readers not to “gobble funk around with words” as it joined criticism of the rewriting of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books.
The remarks reference a language spoken by the title character in The Big Friendly Giant, one of the most popular characters in Dahl’s work, as No 10 warned against “airbrushing” his texts.
On Friday, The Telegraph revealed staff at the publisher Puffin have made hundreds of changes to Dahl’s original texts in new versions, removing many of his colourful descriptions and making characters less grotesque.
Asked about the subsequent row, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the Prime Minister agrees with the BFG that you shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words.
“It is important that works of literature, works of fiction, are preserved and not airbrushed.”
In the BFG, the titular protagonists warns “don’t gobblefunk around with words”, while Susan Rennie, the chief editor of the Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary, has said that to “gobblefunk with words” means to “play around with them and invent new words or meanings”.
Changes made by Puffin to the work of Dahl, who died in 1990, included removing the words “black” and “white”, meaning the BFG can no longer wear a black cloak, as well as heavily altered references to characters’ physical appearances.
Literary backlash
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Oompa-Loompas are no longer “tiny” and have gone from being “small men” to “small people”, while the word “fat” has been removed as a reference to August Gloop, who is now described as “enormous”.
Puffin insisted its used sensitivity readers so the books “can continue to be enjoyed by all today”, but the edits were met with a backlash from giants of the creative and literary worlds.
Sir Salman Rushdie, whose book The Satanic Verses was banned in 45 Islamic countries, wrote on Twitter: “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
Brian Cox, the actor, told Times Radio the books should be left alone and branded Puffin’s actions “disgraceful” as he compared woke culture to McCarthyism.
Mr Sunak made free speech a defining platform of his leadership campaign last summer, as he pledged to “safeguard our shared cultural, historical and philosophical heritage”.
Addressing Tory activists in July, he vowed to crack down on “Left-wing agitators” who he said were intent on “rewriting the English language so we can’t even use words like ‘man’ ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ without being told we’re offending someone”.
He also criticised the “Lefty woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women”.
**Read more for free: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/02/20/rishi-sunak-roald-dahl-puffin-gobblefunk-words/**
Whatever you think about this, what does it have to do with him?
The people who own the IP to the books decided to make a change to the books. They can do that. What does it have to do with the Prime Minister?
Except that it is yet another supposed “culture war” issue to jump on, of course.
I’m glad our Prime Minister is at last focusing on one of the most important pressing issues facing our society today: gobblefunking around with words.
The main but I don’t understand is why they replaced Matilda reading Joseph Conrad with Jane Austen ?
>Brian Cox, the actor, told Times Radio “…the books were a wonder of the universe, I flew here, to South America, courtesy of the BBC License payer just to say this” “Wait, we said Brian Cox the actor” “Oh, no, I’m Brian Cox the Physicist and keyboard player from D:Ream – I’ll fly straight home”
I dont know why it involves the PM but its a horrific idea.
Whoever these sensitivity readers were should be ashamed of themselves.
We going to paint clothes on works of art of naked people next?
i think it’s interesting that these books are being edited in order to prevent children from the negative influence of “offensive” words when the same people offended grew up with them and were able to understand that they’re not things to necessarily describe someone in real life as? children are capable of discerning right from wrong and the books are harmless
Phillip Pullman’s comments miss the mark. He says Roald Dahl can defend himself. Roald Dahl is a bit dead for that.
What does he think of the idea of some professional morality police waiting until he dies then doing a hackjob on “His Dark Materials” and re-releasing it as “Their Materials”?
I would be interesting to see what he said if he was asked if publishers should reinstate the bit about he Oompa Loompas being African Pigmies who were ‘imported’ by Wonker from ‘deepest Africa’ and who are paid only in chocolate. Presumably that would be a bad thing?
Edit: just to be clear, I am not particularly in favour of changing the language in this case, just that I don’t see anything intrinstically wrong with changing outdated language, which is what Rishi seems to be arguing here.
Lee Anderson saying the Tories need to fight the next election on their own invention of Culture Wars is fucking vile and Sunak using a pithy dogwhistle to that wing of the party…
Absolutely noone has asked the publishers to do this. They are doing it off their own back to maximise sales of their books because they are worried the existing language will put off future readers. Dahl himself participated in rewrites back in the 60s/70s to modernise the books and remove racist language.
Can you argue that publishers shouldn’t do this and should let the original text stand and the book live or die on it’s own merits? Absolutely.
Is any of this to do with any sort woke conspiracy? Nope.
When normal people talk about the current Tory Party, very few of their words are publishable, so perhaps Rishi Sunak should shift his attention to finding out what’s behind their ever increasing hostility.
Being 61, I’ve read all of Roald Dahls books, met him several times…..lovely gentle man……and I managed to grow up without being a racist. In fact fact no “-ist” at all.
Did I misunderstand the books?
However, The books did give me good references for the potential of ugliness and hate beneath a ‘lovely’ exterior…..or greed, avarice, lack of trust, unfairness. Which has actually made me able to be able to understand the bullshit of the skin-deep caring, sharing and inclusivity claimed by so many now.
The Twits is a great book…..maybe parents should try reading it TO their children and explaining what it is about, rather than selecting ‘bad’ words.
I also read all the classics…..I’ll class Brer Rabbit as a classic….even Enid Blyton….and didn’t come out with a twisted sense of entitlement or hate.
2 billion missing form ppe contracts and you know who is at fault in your government, but noo lets talk about kids books.
For those who dont speak Indian, he means “Fword around with words.”
Minor changes that are almost unnoticeable. Dahl himself made changes to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Great Glass Elevator and Danny Champion of the World after they were published.
Chances are nobody would notice if the right wing media hadn’t latched onto this.
TLDR: I agree, puffin are idiots (or clever look at us all talking about it), airbrushing is bad no matter the context, let’s keep repeating history, maybe next time we’ll learn (probably not). Works of art are often restored but never deliberately altered why treat artistic literature any differently.
“When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the Prime Minister agrees with the BFG that you shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words. It is important that works of literature, works of fiction, are preserved and not airbrushed.”
I do agree, surely if we keep trying to hide who we were, who our ancestors were and how we as a society used to behave and the ills that came from it we are doomed to repeat the past?
I couldn’t imagine reading Of Mice and Men without the references of the *n word (assuming I can’t say it in a subreddit) and descriptions of the disabled having nearly as much influence without them. Sure in classes asked to read aloud it feels excruciating as you’re sat in a room of classmates from various backgrounds with various disabilities and ethnicities, and it should, that’s perfect, that’s your mind realising “fuck how was this OK” and shows how far as a society we have come.
Don’t airbrush anything, show it off and show how we’ve developed from then, compare past to present.
The changes described seem to be that of gender equality, nuclear family adjustments and body shaming? Why exclude the fact we used to be rather homophobic, misogynistic and particularly evil to anyone who looked different, we were, some still are, it’s by no means a perfect world and some children’s books should show that… And some show that it is, and it can be better, but Roald Dahl isnt the only children’s author and was very much a product of his time, something to look back at and say this is what we used to be isn’t that strange.
there’s plenty of children’s authors out there some are exceptionally good at showing inclusivity to the weird and wonderful, look at many of the young children’s books from Dolly Parton’s library foundation over the years some of which highlight societal issues (my daddies, publisher puffin), environmental issues (clean up, publisher puffin).
Despite the author Harry Potter highlights the issues of judging people based on uncontrollable aspects (mudbloods vs purebloods vs muggles). If you’re looking for fantasy fiction on how judgemental society can be along the same vein as Harry Potter, Darren Shan and Derek Landy both do so in their own way with their Cirque du Freak and Skulduggery Pleasant collections. Ofc there’s Jacqueline Wilson on issues such as adoption and fostering as well as the judgement from society towards the disabled.
All of the above are in the same age group roughly as Roald Dahl, all more evolved over the years and more relevant depictions of modern society, I’m sure there are some released more recent that I don’t know about.
He is so desperate for notoriety unconnected to how shit of a job he’s doing and how ruinous and corrupt his party is. It’s so obvious that one hopes journalists will turn it into a story about how weak and desperate he is.
Was about to post on this myself then saw this here.
Who are these people that seem to think we all live on an agreeable world?
The part they changed on The Witches is in no way of a child’s intelligence to understand.
Children say words without thinking it might upset or insult anyone.
Saying this, to indicate a “fat” kid to an “enormous” kid sounds more insulting than in first place.
Top it all off, fucking non-binary twats wants Oompa Loompas now ‘small people’ not small men.
It’s got Sam Smith written all over it! Bald, fat, men, certainly touches a nerve in his body.
No matter of Rishi Sunik Prime Minister involved, glad someone in power has spoken out to this out of control rule makers.
Surprised King Charles hasn’t spoken out.
What next, Roald Dahl was a pervert or a slave trader?
101 opinions (currently) by people who feel entitled to express their opinions online, most of which are berating the PM for expressing an opinion on something.
Can’t wait till these arseh0les are out of power, two more years.
“*Publishing company makes stupid decision which nobody asked for – clearly this is an issue for the Head of Government*”
It’s amazing how easily people get worked up into a little red-faced tizzy about this asinine ‘*culture war*’ bullshit. No wonder the right are leaning on it like a man with one leg blown off.
Why don’t the tories stop gobblefunking around with the country
I don’t give a shit what Rishi thinks. He’s a feckless idiot like his predecessors and hiding behind blatant culture war bullshit. Go govern the country you useless piece of shit.
I read the headline and thought this was satire from newsthump.
We need to revert back to the original where the Oompa-Loompa’s were black pigmies from somewhere in Africa and smuggled over to England in crates.
Can politicians stay tf out of this and focus on doing their job?
“Talking nonsense rubbish worked for Boris, maybe it’ll distract people from Aprils increase in energy tax” he said, pulling his silly hat and high vis jacket out of the Amazon delivery pouch. “Now, lets go get photographed failing to operate some kind of big machinery!”
Like everything woke this is an open goal for the Tories.
To be added to the already long list of dead-cat subjects.
Netflix now own the Roald Dahl Story Company so it’s 100% a corporate “ass-covering” incase someone in middle-America gets mildly offended by a story calling someone ugly, or using the word “queer” in it’s traditional sense because god forbid it cause them a scandal before they launch new movies or TV shows.
The changes are insane and ignore a lot of context, and are implemented with all the care of a sledgehammer circumcision to be compatible with corpo-speak
Says the guy that looks like a Quentin Blake illustration.
It’s just his PR team trying to make him seem like he’s familiar with the Zeitgeist. I’d bet he’s never read Roald Dhal book in his life
Oh god! hes trying to boris! And failing miserably at it