Susie O’Brien: New Age rinse applied to Roald Dahl classics is an abomination

Oompa Loompas are now “small people”, not “small men”, characters are no longer “fat” but “enormous”. The New Age rinse of Roald Dahl’s classics is an abomination.

Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas are no longer allowed to be called small men.

Words matter and Roald Dahl’s words matter more than most.

Recent moves to give this icon of children’s literature a New Age rinse are an abomination.

As Dahl himself might say, it’s a snozzcumerbing gobblefunk that’s left me bogmuddered.

A sensitivity committee has cast its evil eye over his best-loved works and decided that some of the most famous words ever written need a modern makeover.

What a disgrace.

I’ll bet this sad little group of people have never had a book published in their lives, and yet they think they can do it better than Dahl.

Thanks to this committee of language cleaners, Oompa Loompas are no longer “small men” but “small people”, Augustus Gloop is no longer “fat” but “enormous” and Mrs Twit is no longer “ugly and beastly” but just “beastly”.

The word “ugly” has been removed from The Twits. Picture: Mark Stewart

Roald Dahl’s books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide.

In their hands, Miss Spider no longer has a “black head” and even the word idiot is outlawed. The term “eight nutty little idiots” now reads “eight nutty little boys”.

Some of these changes don’t even make any sense. Why would Miss Trunchbull no longer be a “female” but a “woman” instead?

While I think some tweaks to classics can be justified – removing the n-word, for instance – there is no reason for these changes to be made.

Removing racial slurs and epithets make a material difference to a group of people.

But these recent changes are the result of non-existent offence based on complaints that haven’t ever been made.

Wouldn’t you think the critics would care more about the content of Dahl’s book, such as the Twits who try and destroy each other, George who tries to poison his grandmother and the Witches who try and get rid of all the world’s children?

Sadly, no.

Kids are smart enough to know what’s appropriate and what’s not, and we need to give them more credit for this.

Fiddling with words and phrases undermine the historical integrity of these works. They affect the meaning and context of the entire book. And they clean up words that are naughty, subversive and deliberately inappropriate.

There’s a reason why generations of kids have loved Roald Dahl’s books. Picture: Anna Rogers

There’s a reason why a Dahl book sells every 2.6 seconds. They are bad, nasty and mean, and this is why kids love them.

When the same politically correct wand was waved over Enid Blyton works some years ago, the books stopped selling and publishers reverted to the original words.

Kids want to read about the Famous Five solving a murder at Smuggler’s Island, not Famous Five getting sensitivity training and doing some composting.

How do kids these days learn about history if they can’t see what previous times were like for children of other generations? The reader is immediately transported back to a time that no longer exists, and that’s part of the magic.

This cultural cleansing is happening far too often.

Other classics under attack include Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Grimm’s Tales, Dr Seuss, and numerous nursery rhymes such as Baa Baa Black Sheep.

With every rewrite of a children’s book or rhyme, a piece of history disappears and we all end up poorer for it.