Roald Dahl books changed to fit inclusivity agenda

Renowned children’s book author Roald Dahl has had his life’s work under scrutiny, and many of his famous titles have been edited to remove what has now been deemed “offensive language” and altered to instead “promote inclusivity”.

Dahl, who has written age-old classics like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘James and the Giant Peach’, ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox’, and ‘Matilda’, will now see these beloved texts altered to fit into today’s identity politics.

Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Books and Dahl’s publisher, now publishes Roald Dahl books with a discreet note on the copyright page of new additions, saying the publishing companies took the initiative to change Dahl’s words.

Puffin Books says “words matter”

The statement, which begins with the phrase, “words matter”, announces that the company made changes so that the book may be continued to be enjoyed by audiences.

“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,” the fine print reads.

The Telegraph released an analysis of how Roald Dahl’s books have been edited in the last 10 years.

According to the editors at Puffin, it’s acceptable for a character to have an ugly personality, but it’s not okay for them to be unattractive. The language has been altered to have less emphasis on appearance, but conveys uglier emotion.

Previous versions of ‘James and the Giant Peach’ read: “Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat / And tremendously flabby at that,” and “Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire / And dry as a bone, only drier.”

The line have been replaced with: “Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute / And deserved to be squashed by the fruit,” and “Aunt Spiker was much of the same / And deserves half of the blame.”

What other changes were made to Dahl’s books?

Puffin Books has taken the red pen to words like “ugly”, “tiny” and “fat”, and changed them to other adjectives or scrapped them altogether. For example, “enormous” replaces “fat”.

The Oompa-Loompas are now gender-neutral and no longer referred to as “small men” but are “small people” instead, “Cloud-Men” are now “Cloud-People” and words like “tiny,” “titchy” or “no higher than my knee” are now forbidden descriptors.

Miss Trunchbull, the antagonist in ‘Matilda’ will now be referred to as the “most formidable woman” instead of the “most formidable female.”

Uproar from critics

The industry — and people concerned with free speech and the force of the inclusivity agenda — have renounced Puffin and the Dahl estate’s move to alter the language.

The novelist, Salman Rushdie, took to Twitter to make his protest, as he called the word-slashing “absurd censorship.”

“Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,” Rushdie wrote on Twitter. “Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”