Mission: crush the anti-semitic googlebomb

[louiselux]

I had a very enjoyable time at my friend's 40th birthday party tonight and was sorry to leave early so I could go to bed. But here I am anyway, not in bed.

I'm getting a bit cheesed off with my US edition of The Charioteer, as I'm fairly sure they've replaced the word 'fat' with the word 'heavy', which I understand is US usage. There are a few other things too, like dumb for stupid, sore for annoyed and guy for bloke, which I'm guessing are replacements too. I suppose I just don't see the point - because if you're reading a book about WW2 Britain, wouldn't you want it to reflect the language and usage of that time and place, rather than change it? Why change it?


Mission: crush the anti-semitic googlebomb: Jew~Jew~Jew~Jew~Jew~Jew~

Comments

[yay4pikas.livejournal.com]

"Heavy" is fairly modern US euphemistic for fat, I think. "Stupid" is currently a LOT more common than "dumb," and "sore" for "annoyed" is more, well, WW2-era American than modern American, which puzzles me -- I could almost see dumbing it down for modern American audiences, but switching the slang of a book set in WW2 UK to the slang of WW2 US is just...what the HELL?

Gah. I hate the Americanizing of books. It totally defeats the point of READING for me -- if I want a book set in the US, I'll read one set in the US, dammit. And given the reading level of Renault, I seriously doubt her American audience would need anything dumbed down (for that matter, show me a functioning American who doesn't know what "stupid" means and I will seriously consider emmigrating -- hell, I think most modern Americans would be confused by the use of "sore" for "annoyed").

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

It totally defeats the point of READING for me

That's what I thought too. I don't see the benefit of that sort of dumbing down, because that's what it seems to be to me. It's very patronising to the reader and seems a hopelessly parochial view of things. I can see why it might be needed for terms which might be genuinely confusing (thinking of 'jumper' in Harry Potter, which I understand means a pinafore type thing in the US and over here means a sweater.)