BrianW
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 6 Mar 2006
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- There's Only One City
Try reading Huckleberry Finn as I did last week. The n-word is on practically every page. Now, in all honesty, that reflects how people thought and talked at the time. (US Southern States, pre-Civil War.) But I can understand how many people might be offended.
People are not, by and large, sufficiently educated to understand that times change and that words that were once acceptable are no longer so. Just because I read Huckleberry Finn it does not mean I am going to go around calling people of colour n*****s. Similarly, medieval people were very frank indeed. The street where brothels were was often called Gropec**t Lane. This wasn't just in one city, but I can't see any Council bringing back that name, can you? No matter how 'historic' it may be. But even respectable people would have called it that at the time. Chaucer's works, which were very bawdy indeed in places, were read out at court in mixed company. No one thought anything of it. If that was put on the BBC at 8.00 pm tonight, people would go hairless.
As for the Bible, it's been rewritten many times. The Bible generally used in church today was produced in the 1960s (I think) and is very different to the King James Version I grew up with. Similarly, if you go to a wedding or a funeral, the service now is not (generally) from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer because they think we're too thick to understand the 17th Century prose. And, by and large, they are right.
By the way, I don't pretend to have all the answers. I read Chaucer and Langland in 14th Century English and it's very hard to understand. I don't say everyone else should be forbidden to have 21st-century updates because the originals are better. No, not only do I not pretend to have the answers, I know I have none.
People are not, by and large, sufficiently educated to understand that times change and that words that were once acceptable are no longer so. Just because I read Huckleberry Finn it does not mean I am going to go around calling people of colour n*****s. Similarly, medieval people were very frank indeed. The street where brothels were was often called Gropec**t Lane. This wasn't just in one city, but I can't see any Council bringing back that name, can you? No matter how 'historic' it may be. But even respectable people would have called it that at the time. Chaucer's works, which were very bawdy indeed in places, were read out at court in mixed company. No one thought anything of it. If that was put on the BBC at 8.00 pm tonight, people would go hairless.
As for the Bible, it's been rewritten many times. The Bible generally used in church today was produced in the 1960s (I think) and is very different to the King James Version I grew up with. Similarly, if you go to a wedding or a funeral, the service now is not (generally) from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer because they think we're too thick to understand the 17th Century prose. And, by and large, they are right.
By the way, I don't pretend to have all the answers. I read Chaucer and Langland in 14th Century English and it's very hard to understand. I don't say everyone else should be forbidden to have 21st-century updates because the originals are better. No, not only do I not pretend to have the answers, I know I have none.
