Controversy surrounds book publisher changing words to be less offensive

CHICAGO - Over the weekend, a British news outlet published a list of hundreds of changes which have been made by Roald Dahl's publisher to his texts, most of them removing language some might consider controversial.

For example, although Roald Dahl himself described Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's 'Augustus Gloop' as "fat," his estate's sensitivity readers have changed that adjective to "enormous." The word "ugly" is no longer used to describe any character, and the oompa loompas are rewritten as gender-neutral.

"It toes a weird line," said Rebecca George, Co-Owner of Chicago's Volumes BookCafe.

Here's a flavor of some of the edits: In James and the Giant Peach, what used to read "Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / and tremendously flabby at that..." now reads, "Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / and deserved to be squashed by the fruit..."

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In Matilda, the original read, "She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad." — but now reads, "She went to nineteenth century estates with Jane Austen."

"It's one thing if you're editing something with intent, saying, 'I bet he intended this.' It's another to look at it and say, 'alright we're going to take the things that make us feel uncomfortable and make it so it makes us feel more comfortable,'" said George.

George said some of the edits, while well-intentioned, may actually deprive young readers of learning about how language and standards have changed since they were first written.

"Maybe what he wrote would've been an opportunity to have a conversation: the way that it stood versus changing it to appease our modern-day standards," George said.

On the copyright page of the new versions, there's a note from the publisher saying, "words matter...this book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today."