Trigger Warning Disclaimer

Joe gets so many great emails from our listeners and this was one of them.  P.G. Wodehouse novels now coming with trigger warnings due to outdated language from the 1920's that some might find offensive. This transcript is gold. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I took some time yesterday. I have to do this
now and again as we do the show. You know,
I have the emails from y'all that I save, and
I always have more than we need for mailbag and
articles you send and thoughts and and if something's really
good and we didn't get to it, I'd put it
over here tomorrow right And after a while the pile
just gets crazy. Or sometimes it's stuff that's so good

(00:22):
even though we got to it, I want to be
able to reference it again. But after a certain number
of weeks it just gets it's ridiculous, hundreds of sheets
of paper, and so I have to take an hour
or two to go through it and save it and
sort it and chuck you know, a good bit of it.
But I came across some things i'd save that are
absolutely terrific, and including this from Let's see it's funny.

(00:46):
I don't remember this person's name. It's not really saved.
We'll just say B for initial B and and it's
it's an email about the fact that PG Woodehouses books
now carry a trigger warning, that whole madness of you.
Older books now have trigger warnings, or the publishers insidiously

(01:10):
and unforgivably they edit the books, and if you have
an ebook, they edit them without you even knowing it,
And he goes into some detail about Penguin Books doing this.
The warning is, please be aware this book was published
in the nineteen twenties. Whimpers one such warning quote, and
may contain language, themes or characteristics which you may find outdated,

(01:32):
and B suggests I understand their predicament, but they could
have phrased it in a much more satisfactory manner. For instance,
please be aware that this book was published in the
nineteen twenties and may contain language, themes, or characterizations which
you may find outdated. Well, obviously, literally everything from the
nineteen twenties is outdated. The clothes are outdated, the cars
are outdated, the music, toys and brands of shaving soaper outdated.

(01:54):
So of course the language, themes and characterizations of the
nineteens twenty novels are going to be outdated. It was
written in the distant past. What the hell else would
you expect? I love that. Here's another one for crying
out loud. You've actively chosen to buy a book, which
is the cover and blurb have already made abundantly clear,
describes the comic misadventures of a lot of spats clad
inter war aristocrats who employed domestic staff, totter around country

(02:15):
houses chirping what ho and tinkety tonk, and have friends
with names like Tuppy Stiffy and Pongo Twistleton. Precisely, how
up to date do you expect this book to be?
What sort of blithingly I'm sorry, blithering fat head would
think a novel written an entire century goo should reflect
the prevailing sensibilities of the present day. Is there something
wrong with your brain? Did a waterstone shelf stacker drop

(02:37):
the full thirty volume hardstack set of the Encyclopedia Britannica
on your head? And finally, do we have time for this?
Oh man? Fairly, how about this disclaimer? In any case,
unless you're so pathetically over sensitive that you daren't read
any further, you'll soon discover that this series of books
contains the recurring characters Roderick spoke of Blistering list blisteringly

(02:59):
satirical send up of Oswald Mosley, the founder of the
British Union Fascists, which means that, by the standards of
the time, the author was actually pretty bloody progressive, not
to mention brave. Would you have had the guts to
ridicule in public the leader of a gang of violent
fascists if you'd been around during the rise of Hitler
and Mussolini know exactly. Yet here we are having to
dig out the smelling salts, purely to prepare you for

(03:20):
the shock revelation that a book published after the First
World War contains one or two words that are outdated.
God knows what someone like you thinks you're doing buying
a book anyway. Books are for intelligent people, people capable
of basic thought, people able to grasp the element of
your facts that times change. You sniveling nitwit, you, self
righteous cry baby you, and so on and so forth.

(03:41):
That's how Penguin should have put it. That is genius,
my friend, genius.