The Enid Blyton Society

Ming wrote:In modern children's rhyme books, the rhyme has changed to

Eena meena mina mo
Catch a baby by his toe
If he screams let him go
Eena meena mina mo.

I really don't see any point in changing eeny to eena!

So it is okay to make babies scream, as long as they are white?

A footnote to the previous posts. Although Enid used the word Nigger as a name for a Golly and occasionally as an animals name, she never, as far as I know, used it to describe a person.

Sam the paratrooper in The Mountain of Adventure says to Lucy-Ann, "I poor nigger, little missy..." Must admit that makes me cringe but it obviously wasn't intended to be offensive, since Sam says it about himself!

Anita

I can remember that shades of knitting wool included "nigger brown". It was simply used as an adjective - nothing offensive was intended back then.

There is a very different history of slavery in the UK to the USA, and that has much bearing on the way the golliwog is regarded.

The heyday of slavery in the UK was by the Vikings in the C9th, when Dublin was the worlds largest slave market. Normans enslaved the Anglo-Saxons after 1066. A million Europeans were held slave in North Africa at the same time as the trans-atlantic slave trade, with whole villages from SW England and Ireland being taken at times.

There was never enslavement of Africans in the UK, and in the UK the golliwog was never seen as a black person - just a toy like the teddy bear. Children DID know the difference, but those who were bullies used the golly to be very unpleasant to other children.

Americans have never understood this cultural difference with the UK, and assume that if you like golliwogs you must be racist. In fact I believe it is the other way around; those who loved to cuddle their golly in bed were not the ones to join far right organisations in later life.

Many young black people in the UK have reclaimed the word Nigger, and will happily refer to each other with this term, much to the horror of their white, liberal peers. For the same reason, I think it is time to reclaim the golliwog, and give him his rightful place in a tolerant multi-cultural society

Viv

Whilst i really dislike revisionism of any work of literature, anyone who thinks that the word nigger is acceptable is at best naive, at worst disingenious.

I am still quite shocked to read in Five go off to camp that the children are black as niggers.

the word has no place in our modern society, its connotations with racial hatred and discrimination are too raw.

A bit off topic, my mother was able to get an old edition of the book from eBay for me
at a fairly cheap prize but I'm rather astonished that currently the book is fetching more than $55 in bids!

http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-THREE-GOLLIWOGS ... dZViewItem

Hi Julian. I have the early Dean edition, which still has the original names but is quite cheap to buy. Is this the same as the copy your mum bought you?
The book in the link is considerably older, with the more sought after dustjacket illustrated by Joyce Johnson. This makes it a lot more expensive. I think I read that it was published in 1951, so it's not a first edition, but is quite hard to find (please Tony feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

In connection with what moonraker was saying, I had the same thoughts - on TV every night we hear swear words etc that were once considered taboo, and yet words such as nigger - yes, I always thought it came from the river niger too - are things to make people shudder. Surely its the offensive way the word might be used (as an insult) that is wrong, not the word itself?

I remember regularly using the rhyme eeny meen miny mo as a child when playing hide and seek or tig etc, and it was quite acceptable. Because of the problems surrounding this word I more often hear a foul-mouthed rhyme to choose who will be 'in' uttered by children nowadays:

Ip, dip, dog's *!*!
You are not it.

Perhaps that's a local one to Birmingham, but surely the original eeny meeny is better?!

Mollybob wrote:Hi Julian. I have the early Dean edition, which still has the original names but is quite cheap to buy. Is this the same as the copy your mum bought you?

Yup - thats the one, Mollybob

[tam] I have a simple rule...if something is offensive to a culture or race, I don't do it/use it/say it.

A whole race can’t be offended. It’s only individuals who “allow” themselves to be offended by some of the countless things that can irk them. I ran over some of the words that may not meet with your approval and wondered whether your bookcase is gradually emptying with the contents being put into sealed bags and placed wherever you have hidden *The Three Golliwogs.* Has it happened with the *Brer Rabbit* books which contain the word “Coon,” or perhaps *Let’s Garden* which might mention “Spade?” Taking your statement as being true you must have a fairly limited vocabulary from which to draw. Can you use, or say, the word “Wop?” “Honky?” “Holocaust?” According to Albert we live in a world of relativity or association. Words are related to pictures and that’s how we think but there can be a little “going overboard” in a paranoid sense. In your case it must be quite terrifying to experience such negative emotions when opening a particular Enid Blyton book and finding that when you pull your cap down over your eyes a non-acceptable word hasn’t disappeared from all the books in the world. Worry not - words and names are simply written or typed smudges on a bit of paper, or a noise caused by vibration of air through the larynx. As for the ideas they express, no one can touch those because they are inaccessible to all but yourself.

*The Three Golliwogs* is a harmless Enid Blyton offering and I honestly feel it would be more healthy to look on it as such. What puzzles me is why you would even buy such a book in your present state of mind because the word “Golliwog” has connotations that many people similar to yourself perceive as deprecating. As intimated, people allow themselves to be offended just as I can choose to be offended by the word “pocket-knife” if I so desire - going on the premise that such an item is dangerous, easily hidden and no doubt has been the cause of many injuries and even death. Instead of looking at things as they are, you’re perceiving them as they might have been at some stage in the past but surely it’s better to confront words in their present form and context rather than to purge them from your household.

Short of holding a book-burning, it might be helpful if you went through the seemingly offensive manuscript with a black pen and substituted the letter “M” for “N” Then when you read the word “Migger”” it might not be so daunting. (Getting rather silly isn’t it?) The reason people call others by derogatory names is to elicit a reaction by getting the recipient to act like a puppet with the strings being pulled by the name-caller. I refuse to become someone’s puppet so, for example, if I was called a Honky (which I am) I couldn’t give a damn’. At the same time I would feel a little sorry for the name-caller because he hasn’t the intellect with which to put his case and is hoping to make an impact by calling me a silly name. Children in the playground do it because, as they aren’t mature enough to engage in constructive argument, one will call the other a name and then proceed to pull the strings thus making the unfortunate child dance (with rage). If only someone would teach them. Incidentally, people with your inclinations reacted to “damn’” in the past with the same fervour as you are acting in the present and it was almost banned from one of the most famous movies of all time. Sense kept it in.

I haven’t noticed other American forum members expressing such intense concerns about a word and there is a fair representation - but then I haven’t read all the forum messages. I don’t think anyone would be “offended” by your comments but as this posting-area is the Flag-ship message-board where Enid Blyton is concerned it’s good to think that all words in the author’s books can be used as intended and not censored as Enid Blyton herself was not so long ago. Yes, she was censored and it took a long battle by Enid Blyton Appreciators to have her books once again accepted by the institutions. Here’s an excerpt from the newspaper of August 2nd, 1997: Enid Blyton Lives! After three decades of banishment to Politically Incorrect Land, a literary persona non grata, Blyton has been rehabilitated. It’s a triumph for the Blyton underground movement who cut their reading teeth on Blyton and whose bewildered mantra has been, “But I read Enid Blyton and I’m okay.” In the 60’s and 70’s they watched Blyton fall from grace; their favourite childhood reading swept from library shelves, banished from schools and almost squeezed out of bookshops by the tut-tut brigade who declared Blyton to be boring, sexist, elitist, racist and - the maddest claim of all - that Noddy was having a homosexual relationship with Big Ears.” … and on it goes. Maybe you can gather that not only was paranoia rife in those dark days but there was a deliberate attempt by so-called “academics” to wipe Blyton from the face of the earth.

You requested “help” from the forum members, but I think it would not have been all that difficult to help yourself. You could have thrown the book away although that’s a little risky because someone might pick it up and once again the contamination would be passed on. As mentioned you could have donated the book to a receptive Someone although another forumite wanted it as well but I “bagged” it first and that’s what counts! I see you’re keeping it, so I hope you’ll read the lovely book (in context) and perhaps dwell on the ridiculousness of being negatively affected by words. The old rhyme about “Sticks and Stones” is true provided you “let” it be true.

Bring back your “Fond Memories” and do not let them be destroyed because of - not a “b“ or a “d” or a “j” but an “n” in front of - igger!

Well said, Tiq, may I just say for anyone who doesn't realise it that 'coon' in the Brer Rabbit stories is short for raccoon and has nothing to do with race, not that that argument would cut much ice with the Blue-Pencil Brigade.

Incidentally, the word 'spade' has been changed to shovel in the recent editions of the Faraway Tree stories. For the benefit of any Blyton censors who may be reading this: a spade is a tool for digging, a shovel is an implement for moving loose material e.g. coal, loose earth etc., the terms are NOT interchangable, one cannot dig with a shovel.

Sorry, minor diversion off topic, but I had to get it off my chest. I'm all right now.

Kate.

I'm completely confused about why the word "spade" should have any negative connotations in the first place? I dug with a spade in the garden just the other day and it was a very useful implement. Perhaps someone can enlighten me?

Personally, I believe in calling a spade a spade!

Anita

Erm... aren't spades for digging? Why should spade be an offensive term - what is it's negative side??

Is it something to do with The Queen of Spades? (Yes, I'm being silly in this part, but serious in the others!)

Heh - such a coincidence! While I was typing my previous message, my daughter was playing with a hand-held electronic game in which, every so often, the character receives presents. Just as I submitted my previous message, an image flashed up on my daughter's game and she said, "I've got a spade as a present!" Then she looked at the label next to the image and said, "Oh no - actually, it says it's a shovel!"



Anita