Post by alquackskey on Jan 22, 2021 23:53:02 GMT
Neither, "WAK" was a neutral word in Britain at the time these stories were written. Fairly common dog name, too.
You can read some comments on its general usage in Britain back in the day here in this wikipedia talk page
You can read some comments on its general usage in Britain back in the day here in this wikipedia talk page
So, assuming that the link provided by bats is reliable, it would not surprise me that when the British imported the word from America they used it without the derogative meaning. But it remains that they imported from America, where it was always derogatory in the first place. So, I for once would honestly be careful in printing Ward in the original way. On the other hand, if we keep the word 'n....r' in Mark Twain's novels (and Twain was American!), it would seem to me fair to leave it in poor Ward.
In any case, by giving a look at Ward's Donald comics, I would like to point out a much more relevant reason why it would be hard to print that material today: those comics were WEIRD.
So much about Donald is rooted in America - he was created in America and the Duck comics are primarily set in America.
While Ward may not have meant any harm, the cultural context would definitely come up in discussion - though he was British and working in Britain, Donald was an American character situated in America.
The context that the word was intended to be used in would definitely fly over the heads of many readers; that wouldn't be good for Disney!
As for the Mark Twain example... hoo boy, that's a divisive one.
Plenty of places do censor it, and it comes up frequently in literary circles. Even in academia, though the word itself may not be censored, discussion around it is.
That doesn't bode too well for Ward.
I took a quick glance at Ward's work and, uh... you weren't kidding about it being weird.