The Ethics of Typesetting

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

I do too. So do many readers. But can you safely claim that the spell of the text--the suspension of disbelief--will remain unbroken when a young US reader encounters a "faggot tossed in the fire." Is it right to let new readers flounder when it is absolutely unnecessary?

You're all over the map in your self-justifications. "Fagot" is American English, it's not some British usage like "jumper" or "boot." Any unfamiliar term may cause a reader to flounder--I'll ask again, do you want to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator? I think that one who is reading an unfamiliar term can usually suss out the meaning from the context; if not, there's the dictionary.

I know the intended meaning but a line like that is still a hiccup in even my enjoyment of the text.

That's your problem, not a problem of the text.

If I was republishing Eliot would you approve of me adding footnotes with the translations of non-English lines? Because his intention was clearly to not provide such information. Is it wrong for me to make his work more accessible to readers of today even though accessibility was not his intention?

Not a problem if you annotate or footnote. I've said before, I have no problem with any such clarifications for modern readers. But you are conflating changes to the text with annotations, and changes are DEFINITELY a problem.

And if that is the case, how can we justify the translation of any public domain material? We don't know that the author would have wanted an Arabic edition of his book. I think it's safer to assume a writer would want a word changed if its meaning drastically changes than assume a writer wants their work translated into a different language. Translation, after all, is not an exact science. It can significantly alter meaning.

Now you're once again conflating translation with modernization and sanitization of the text. You are not translating! You are revising. If you want to take a public domain work and rewrite it, slap your name on it and call it a retelling. Don't pretend it's anything else.

My main point is that words are not as important as the ideas they represent and not all readers read to expand their understanding of the past. Some people read solely for pleasure and when the common definition of a single word has changed so drastically I see no problem changing that word to represent the idea the original writer intended so as to not throw a hiccup of unnecessary confusion in that pleasure reading.

Ideas are not subject to copyright. It is the author's words--the way he or she expressed the ideas--that are copyrighted. That tells me that THE WORDS MATTER. You have no right to sanctimoniously change them to match your misguided view of what ought to be.

We can assume a writer using the word "gay" two hundred years ago had no intention what-so-ever of it meaning anything other than what it meant two hundred years ago.

News flash. "Gay" still means happy.

Yes. Because I know the original writer and editor were good at what they did. And no competent writer or editor today, creating books for world readers, would purposely and knowingly use a word that didn't represent the idea they were trying to convey. I believe the dead writers were competent and would release updated editions themselves if they were alive today. The burden of proof is on those assuming they would let the confusion stand.

Balderdash. Oh, wait, is that too old-fashioned a word? If you ever quote me, are you going to change it? After all, my word choice might confuse some reader.

If you pounce on the word "gay" in an old book, just what are you going to change it to? Happy? Merry? Lively? You know, those words and many others were available to the author at the time, and he or she rejected them in favor of "gay." So you are going to take a word that the author felt did not convey quite the proper meaning, and substitute it for the word the author chose. How dare you?

[LuvReadin]

Originally Posted by Muckraker

When the same word means two completely different things depending on the country you are in it is essentially a different language--for that word at least.

Sorry, no - there needs to be a vast difference to make a collection of words into different languages; until then, they are dialects at most.

Originally Posted by Muckraker

What I assume is that 350million potential American readers will get the wrong idea if I toss a faggot on the fire. Will my potential readers in England be completely baffled by me tossing a bundle of sticks on the fire?

No. Neither will they get the wrong idea if you refer to a 'fanny pack' instead of a 'bum bag' or refer to someone having 'bangs' rather than a 'fringe' (although they might snigger a bit). Does this make the English readers smarter than the Americans? Well, clearly you must think so - I doubt most of them would agree!

Originally Posted by Muckraker

I am a lover of language but I have no intention of writing something I know will transmit the wrong idea to the bulk of my potential readers just because I think other people should love the intricacies of language as much as I do.

Excuse me, but that's exactly what you are in danger of doing. You are setting yourself up as the beginning of a chain of Chinese Whispers, drawing the text further and further away from the author's intended meaning, and possibly ending up, if other people repeat your process, with something that is unrecognisable from the original.

Originally Posted by Muckraker

I did essentially that. I just offered the opt-in as the default option. I'll change the word to preserve the flow and if the readers of the young-adult fantasy novel want further information they have it. Keeping a word that breaks the spell and then further breaking the spell with a footnote in a kid's fantasy novel is not something I'm interested in doing. Readers can choose to go the original route by just reading the original novel.

And how precisely, are they going to do that if you don't tell them what you've done (which, from what you've written previously, you don't)? And even if you do, why should readers go to the trouble of re-reading a book just so they can get the original? I'm sorry, but this appears to be much more about your likes/dislikes and your belief in what the text 'should' be, than either the author or the reader.

Originally Posted by Muckraker

I didn't say it was a minor change. I said it was a major change to a minor detail. Saying "John saw a Ford Escort drive by," is a major change from "John saw a Chevy Malibu drive by." But it is a minor detail that does not affect the story.

Again, how do you know this is a 'minor detail'? Only because you found it to be so on your reading of the book. It might well have meant something extremely significant at the time, and yes, possibly something that by now, might have significance only for a tiny proportion of the people that read it, but again, how can this possibly be your call to make?

Originally Posted by Muckraker

If readers want to determine on their own whether my change majorly affected the original story then they have all the data there to make that determination. It's fully documented.

Then forgive me if I've misread your previous comments (as apparently, so have others), because it seemed to me you were making these changes without calling attention to them in any way whatsoever.

Originally Posted by Muckraker

The quality of the work suffers then. If a sentence makes no sense to anyone that reads it, the writer is not there to confirm their intention, and you publish it as-is then you have just published an inferior product. The publisher correcting the mistake has created a product that is better than yours and better than the original. Why in the world should we perpetuate a mistake simply because it was already made?

At the risk of repeating myself yet again (and apparently repeating what you've said just below this comment), if such a correction is deemed necessary (and I would want to have more than one person deciding this), then it should be clearly marked and explained, and it should not be an excuse for substituting with what you think is a less offensive word. So change 'fagot' to 'faggot' by all means if you think that would be a more recognised spelling, provided it's done with a footnote and/or explanation, but don't change it to 'stick' just because it happens to offend your sensibilities.

[QuantumIguana]

If you're looking for permission, you're not likely to get it, and more importantly, you don't need it. If it is public domain, it is yours to do with as you wish. Just understand that some people aren't going to like it.

I can go on Amazon and get Don Quixote in all its 1000+ pages, or I can get an abridged version that has 300 or less pages. They all have Cervantes name on the cover. They don't document every deletion, but they do make it clear that they have made changes. The key is not to mislead people into thinking this is the original. A link in the text to the original on Project Gutenberg would be helpful.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Excuse me, but that's exactly what you are in danger of doing. You are setting yourself up as the beginning of a chain of Chinese Whispers, drawing the text further and further away from the author's intended meaning, and possibly ending up, if other people repeat your process, with something that is unrecognisable from the original.

The author's intended meaning assumed the reader had access to a cultural setting that no longer exists.

And how precisely, are they going to do that if you don't tell them what you've done (which, from what you've written previously, you don't)?

From what was said, the original text will also be included, or perhaps a link to scans will be included. People who want THE ORIGINAL VERSION are welcome to acquire it. People who want to read a version formatted for modern readers will have to cope with editorial decisions--changes in format (what if the original had no TOC? Does that mean the ePub shouldn't have a TOC?), fonts (what if the author thought it was VERY IMPORTANT that chapter titles get a scripty font? What if the original had long sections that were handwritten? Is the form of the words irrelevant but the phrasing is crucial?), punctuation (spaces before and after emdashes? Endashes? No spaces? Hyphenations at ends of lines--how do you know if that was intended to be a hyphenated word or a compound word?), and sometimes words and phrasing.

Changing "aeroplane" to "airplane" is not an insult directed at the author. It's a change to make the text seem like a more modern story; using archaic phrasings and spellings sets the story in a particular era. The author, of course, did not set their story in 2012 because they had no way of knowing what elements of society would change by then. Forcing the reader to acknowledge "THIS TAKES PLACE SEVERAL DECADES AGO" is just as much a denial of the author's original meaning as changing the phrasing.

When you edit a public domain work, you don't have the option of making it "as the author intended." The author intended it to be read by his or her contemporaries, which we are not. The author intended people to know which elements of technology were commonplace and which were exotic and new to the characters. The author intended people to recognize which characters were overtly bigoted, which were quietly status-quo in their support of bigotry, and which were progressive and liberal-minded. The author intended readers to recognize high-status and low-status characters by cues of dress and language.

Keeping the original text exact can fail to get across the author's message.

Some authors would no doubt be offended at changes in the slightest bit of their text. Some, however, would be pleased that someone had gone to the effort of trying to figure out their intent and make sure the words supported that message.

And who am I, who is Muckraker, to be figuring out the author's intents? We are, like anyone else, readers who care about the themes and messages in books, and want them understood by new readers.

People who insist that it's okay if books are only understood by people who've studied the era in which the book was written are, of course, welcome to stick to exact reprints. If they can find them, because most publishing houses don't bother to mention when they tweak a few words and update archaic spelling.

People who insist that children should be pushed to read books that are set in a world nothing like the one they grew up in, and that an adult should be on hand to guide them into the "correct" understanding of passages that make no sense to them, are also reinterpreting the author's words--they're just claiming that it's acceptable to do so vocally but not textually.

Textual idolatry: The printed word is sacred; the understandings, explanations, commentary and media shifts are less important. I can understand that approach, but I don't agree. I'm in the group that thinks the important part is the message, the story, and that has to be shifted to fit the audience.

In most cases, the shifts are tiny--changes in formatting to modern standards, changes in punctuation, fixing typos, the occasional incomprehensible word or word that's drastically shifted meanings corrected to a more modern one. Sometimes the shifts are bigger--condensed versions offered for children, so they don't have to wait until they're able to read an 80,000 word text to learn the basic story, changing the accompanying artwork to something that's as inoffensive today as the original was in its day, updating the technology so the reader isn't thrown a century into the past to follow the storyline.

An ethical editor notes what scope of changes they've wrought in the story, but there is no option of "don't make any changes at all." Even an exact replica isn't "the same" as it was when the story was written; the surrounding context is different.

[Muckraker]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Sorry, I just don't accept this argument at all. I think this is actually being quite insulting to the intelligence of the reader. If they're old enough to read Trixie Belden, they're old enough to use a dictionary, or even ask their parents.

Or they can skip over it or become confused or form an incorrect definition they will carry with them. All readers are different.

Possibly not, but footnotes are far less intrusive than rewriting a text, and actually, they can be quite informative. Even, dare I say it, interesting!

I agree. I often include extensive supplementary material in what I publish. But we don't know the author would have supported that--like with T.S. Eliot.

Sorry, that's a fallacious argument. Any translation makes it clear that it isn't the original, and the original is almost always available to read instead, should one wish to do so. The sort of tinkering you describe presents a text that purports to be the original (or at least very close to), without being any such thing.

This is no different. The original text is available on its own in old editions and is also included in its entirety in the tinkered-with edition. It's made very clear that racially insensitive material was changed and that mine is a different edition.

Exactly! And you're tinkering with those ideas. Writers spend hours, days, maybe months, choosing exactly the words that will convey the meaning they want to convey, and you believe that you can do better?

I believe I can identify when a word no longer means what it meant at the time the original author chose it. In a case like that we know the author did not intend its current meaning because its current meaning did not exist.

They might well do. That isn't for you to decide. Even were they do so, you have no way of knowing that they'd choose the same form of words you've decided upon. Don't you find your assumption that you can do as well as them even the tiniest bit arrogant?

I also have no way of knowing if the writers would have wanted to be republished in the first place. Perhaps they didn't like the attention. Perhaps they became embarrassed by what they wrote. When we republish public domain content we assume all sorts of things. One of the assumptions I choose to make is that professional writers would not use words that no longer express the ideas they want to communicate. Another assumption is that a writer would prefer I fix a clear error instead of perpetuating it.

I have another example for you to consider. There was a printing error in the first edition of a book I published. Two of the drawings had big white bars through the middle of them--wiping out 1/3rd of each image. Every printing of the book since then has retained that error. Every available copy of that book contained those errors. That is until I republished it. I drew in what I thought was probably intended for those missing sections. I tossed the original images in an appendix so people could compare the two. I clearly indicated that I had modified the images and that if anyone knew of a copy of the book that had the original images intact I would appreciate they contact me so I could update my book.

Is what I did wrong? Should I have left the errors alone and accepted the fact that readers would be disappointed and confused by a clear mistake in their brand new book?

I take great pride in my work and I give all my attention to works and/or writers that have otherwise been written off by the world. The only people who could give me permission to do anything I do are dead. If it is arrogant to keep their legacies alive, republish their work, bring new life to it through supplementary content, and attempt to make the work accessible to modern readers when warranted then I am guilty as charged.

The readers are the ones who will decide if I am qualified to do what I do, just as Thompson's readers decided if she was qualified to write about things that Baum created. If I'm not qualified and my work is bunk then the people who read it will publicly rip me to shreds and potential readers will steer clear and choose 1938 copies instead. I would prefer to think I'm qualified and accept my fate then not do the work in the first place out of fear I'm unqualified. And I would like to think the dead writers I republish are happy I'm giving their overlooked and under-appreciated work some love.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I find that replacing all exclamation points in a novel with question marks can really do wonders for the prose. Henry James was a prolific man of letters, but he tended to be offensively unironic when it came to punctuation.

[Muckraker]

@ Catlady, Elcreative, and LuvReadin

I understand and respect your positions. What I originally intended as a short voicing of my philosophy to further my procrastination has gotten too big for me to adequately address. So I'll just summarize.

I've published 18 books. I've made non-grammatical content changes in one of those books. I fixed two image printing errors in another. I've added extensive supplementary content and new covers to most. I am concerned with accessibility and even make it a point to release large-print editions when it's financially feasible.

The two books with changes have the changes extensively documented and the original text and images are included in their entirety. The books are titled as new editions and the sales blurb states that text was changed and added.

I don't believe I am a god or a genius. I am a reader and writer that also republishes rare and endangered books. The quality of my work and the appropriateness of a couple tough decisions I made will ultimately be determined by readers. I'm not trying to get rich or trick anyone.

I saw that obscure works from 1923-1963 were in danger of being lost due to copyright uncertainty and readers not knowing they existed in the first place. That bothered me. That's why I do what I do. Whether or not I'm qualified to do what I do will be determined by readers and the passage of time. If I'm unqualified then I'll ultimately be the one slipping away.

[Catlady]

Elfwreck, two words for you: slippery slope.

You are defending things like adding a TOC and changing a font and altering the formatting--but where has anyone objected to this sort of thing? The objection is to the alteration of the words themselves.

While changing a spelling from "aeroplane" to "airplane" is insignificant, it is also unnecessary. The original word is perfectly understandable. But let's say you change it. Then you start changing words like "fagot" and "gay" and "niggardly" and a whole host of others. Then you decide that the author was being racist and you take it upon yourself to sanitize the text by inventing a workaround the author never dreamed of. What next? Do you decide to change a male character to a female character because you think girl readers don't have a role model to identify with? Do you decide that a character's non-PC statements should be revised? Where do you stop?

Isn't it better not to start on that slippery slope? Leave the damn "aeroplane" alone, leave all of it alone to stand or fall on its own merits. Write your own book, put your own name on it, be as PC as you want--but leave the original words alone.

Treat the book as you should a quote. You don't get to change quoted material, no matter how much you think you can improve it with a few tweaks. It is what it is. Let it be

[QuantumIguana]

The words are unharmed. The original is still there. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies didn't hurt Pride and Prejudice at all.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Elfwreck, two words for you: slippery slope.

What next? Do you decide to change a male character to a female character because you think girl readers don't have a role model to identify with?

Why, yes... I've done exactly this. Still tweaking the formatting, but I've got a complete genderswapped version of Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

I think I'll put that at the top of my priority list, now that you've reminded me of it.

Do you decide that a character's non-PC statements should be revised? Where do you stop?

Isn't it better not to start on that slippery slope? Leave the damn "aeroplane" alone, leave all of it alone to stand or fall on its own merits.

You may believe that great literature should left to history fans to appreciate; some of us think that great stories deserve to survive even in a different culture from the one they were written in. If that means translating a few cultural identifiers to ones that new readers will recognize, some of us are okay with that.

Write your own book, put your own name on it, be as PC as you want--but leave the original words alone.

Treat the book as you should a quote. You don't get to change quoted material, no matter how much you think you can improve it with a few tweaks. It is what it is. Let it be

We do get to "change quoted material." That's the reason quotes often include brackets that include a few words that help set the context; it's the reason we quote with ellipses to remove extraneous parts. It's unethical not to announce that there are changes, but there's no particular value in saying "it survives as a popular work as last published by the author, or it gets thrown into the dustbin of history."

It's also ridiculous to say "it's okay to translate to another language, which involves hundreds of editorial choices, but not to translate across time to today's language." Do you think translators work to re-create the exact language that *would have been used* at the time of original publication? If not, how is that any different from updating to more modern language in English?

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

We do get to "change quoted material." That's the reason quotes often include brackets that include a few words that help set the context; it's the reason we quote with ellipses to remove extraneous parts. It's unethical not to announce that there are changes, but there's no particular value in saying "it survives as a popular work as last published by the author, or it gets thrown into the dustbin of history."

Using brackets is not changing the quote. It's a clear indication that someone who is not the author has added something. That is not a problem, as I and others have said. Use brackets wherever you wish--fine.

It's also ridiculous to say "it's okay to translate to another language, which involves hundreds of editorial choices, but not to translate across time to today's language." Do you think translators work to re-create the exact language that *would have been used* at the time of original publication? If not, how is that any different from updating to more modern language in English?

It is completely disingenous to be lumping together translations, formatting tweaks, bracketed emendations, annotations, spelling updates, hyphenation, and changes to word choices/meaning. These are not the same thing at all, and I'm sure you are well aware of that, though it seems to suit your purposes to pretend they are all the same. Neither is it the same thing to zombify classics--unless you are presenting the zombification as, e.g., Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It's not.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--do what you want with a classic, but put your name on it and title it as a retelling, a condensed version, a PC version, a zombie version; whatever. Don't pretend it's the real thing.

And again I'll say that this is why e-books are a bit frightening. Anyone can change any text, for any reason, upload it somewhere, and it's suddenly out in the wild, being confused for the real book.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I've said it before and I'll say it again--do what you want with a classic, but put your name on it and title it as a retelling, a condensed version, a PC version, a zombie version; whatever. Don't pretend it's the real thing.

If I change 5% of the book, reissuing it under my name--rather than listing myself as an editor--smacks of plagiarism.

[morriss003]

Many of the old Howard Pease books would be unreadable to many people without changing the racist language, and this would be unfortunate, for his books are wonderful stories. I would change the language, but put a notice at the beginning that this has been done.

[Native]

This honestly just happened - with added import because I've lately been following this thread. Going through some study of the states with my son, I was surprised to find that the capitol of North Carolina is Ralph. Revising the antiquated spelling in all of those maps and texts is going to be a lot of work for somebody.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Catlady

News flash. "Gay" still means happy.

Yes it does. Which was one of the reasons it was co-opted by certain members of the homosexual community to refer to themselves, as a way of refuting the idea that they were somehow maladjusted.

But, if we're focusing on the changing meaning of words, ironically it has now developed another interpretation in teenage use, to mean that something is "lame" or "stupid".

Which seems very apropos to the editing in question.