It’s not just Tintin and Batman who are getting a rough deal with censorship this week - Jacqueline Wilson’s book My Sister Jodie has been at the stinging end of a conservative language kerfuffle too. Random House have agreed to change the word ‘twat’ to ‘twit’ in the best-selling book after receiving three complaints.
More than 150,000 copies have already been sold and according to Random House only three people have complained. The UK retailer Asda received one of those complaints and have decided to remove it from their shelves until the reprint is released.
Michael Rosen comments about it on the Guardian blog
No one is going to be corrupted by it (as if!), no one is going to suffer because of it, no one is going to be emotionally damaged by it. The word in common British-English usage has come to mean something not much different from “twit” or “stupid person” and if you want to represent the speech of young people today, then that is one stroke of the writer’s paintbrush that is available to you.
There is a double edged sword with Wilson. She is former Children’s Laureate as well as a respected and renowned writer of bestsellers - something which Random House won’t want to jeopardize. If the book been written by a younger or unknown author would the call to reprint have been made?
Read more on the Guardian or The Telegraph
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