Thanks for posting. Every time I've read a RLS book lately I've been blown away by how entertaining and well done they are.
Treasure Island - pure gold. Kidnapped - gold.
I recall in the introduction to one of them he explains he wrote these stories for boys. Adventure, danger, fun characters. If you have sons you'll know there is a certain aesthetic young boy love and these books deliver it.
I also was amazed how much I enjoyed his books for adults, like the one about being on a ship as a kid (can't find the name).
If you look into his biography you find some really hard things that I guess he transformed into writing.
> If you have sons you'll know there is a certain aesthetic young boy love and these books deliver it.
Reminded me immediately of Montehomo, the Hawks Claw, chief of the ever-victorious.
> At night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. They learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and savages on the road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful maidens, and make a plantation.
It’s been more than forty years (good God!) since I read it, but I recall enjoying Virginibus Puerisque excessively. My delight was doubled when I found out that my mother had read and enjoyed it too. Travels with a Donkey was another hit for me.
I had less luck with Kidnapped. Haven’t tried Treasure Island.
Worth it for a boy's portrait of an archetypal pirate of the 1700s. Since portrayed by many, like Orson Welles (several times), Basil Rathbone, Tom Baker.
Surprised to see a slur on the front page of HN. Mostly that surprise comes from, "I wonder what the editorial guidelines for the site are? We're supposed to post titles without editing, but should slurs be partially obscured?"
Like, the author can write whatever they want. Let them use a slur in their title if that's what they are going to do. But on HN should slurs be copied exactly? Should they be edited in some way? (E.g. "G*psy", "G[slur]" etc) Does it matter what slur it is (presumably some are more offensive?)
Maybe the right thing to do is still post whatever the author titled their piece?
My understanding is that it's considered a slur by some when used to refer to the Romani people. According to Wikipedia, "Some Roma use and embrace this term"
As it's used here to just mean nomadic or itinerant it seems ok.
IMO it's up to the Romani to decide not the UK census site.
But in fact it seems to be the term used by some Romani groups
> The term Gypsy, which originates in the word "Egypt", mistakenly believed to be the original homeland of the Gypsies, has been controversial.[8] Some Romani activists reject the term, but it is embraced by others.[8] Although the term "Roma" was endorsed in place of "Gypsies" at the first World Roma Congress in London,[9] many Romani people in Britain prefer to call themselves Gypsies, or names that include the term such as Romani Gypsies or Romany Gypsies.[10][11][5][12][8][13] They also commonly refer to themselves as Romani or Romanies.[14]
I believe (but can't find a clear source) that there are also Native American groups that prefer to be called Indian. This is a close analogy Egypt <-> Romani, India <-> Native Americans.
But it is true that many people only recently stopped using "gypped" as a slur. My kid was reading A Wrinkle in Time and looking for vocabulary words the other day, and I had to tell her that "gypped" was probably not appropriate for her homework and that we don't use that word anymore. So that's one reason to be aware that "Gypsy" is controversial. In my experience, many people are not aware of this fact at all because it so rarely comes up.
It's not only present in the title. Midway through: "Louis’s mother, was a more joyful figure, and proved to be resilient after her husband’s death, sailing with Louis’s gypsy family to the South Seas."
I'm inclined to think the author is aware of modern preferences, and that Stevenson's family may have referenced themselves this way.
That's true although "Roma" is a more sensitive (and accurate) description. The linked article is still a bit weird, as RLS does not appear to be Roma or even a vagabond/itinerant figure. He just travelled a lot.
I believe Roma is a very continental European (German?) term. I’ve only ever heard it in the context of “Sinti und Roma.” In any case it A) refers to a specific subset of the broader “Gypsy” sects and B) is virtually unknown in America.
In the US there are “Gypsy” and “Irish Travellers,” with the latter being a specific subset like Roma, and even then I’ve only heard the term used regionally, e.g. in Augusta, SC where a population lives.
> debating the headline
> not even talking about the article
Both typical around these parts.
I suspect the author or publisher may have chosen the name of the book for that attention-drawing controversiality. RLS was not the healthiest author and partly 'wandered' in search of better prospects than those of Old Blighty.
It seems to me that "peak sensitivity" with regards to potentially offensive words and ideas was reached in 2020-1 and the US seems to be on the downward trajectory since then, with the slope of that trajectory vastly increasing in 2025.
So this editorial decision might be just part of this overall trend.
Plot twist: yes it's an insensitive term, and it appears to be gratuitously applied to Stevenson. But not without precedent. Phillip Callow wrote in an earlier book "Louis became in turn a bohemian dandy, a literary gypsy..." Notably not literally a gypsy. But an interesting convergence in choice of words.
The answer to your question is "yes, but typically only very mildly".
Offense is not some Boolean, and intent matters in determining how offense something is.
For example, a kid reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn might unknowingly repeat a word they learned from that book that we consider extremely offensive today. We'd probably all pause that conversation and explain that they should not use that word.
Ideally, most folks upon learning that a word is offensive go, "oh, apologies, I had no idea" and the other party goes, "No problem, now you know" and everyone moves on. Doesn't have to escalate, doesn't need to be bigger than that.
Thanks for posting. Every time I've read a RLS book lately I've been blown away by how entertaining and well done they are.
Treasure Island - pure gold. Kidnapped - gold.
I recall in the introduction to one of them he explains he wrote these stories for boys. Adventure, danger, fun characters. If you have sons you'll know there is a certain aesthetic young boy love and these books deliver it.
I also was amazed how much I enjoyed his books for adults, like the one about being on a ship as a kid (can't find the name).
If you look into his biography you find some really hard things that I guess he transformed into writing.
> If you have sons you'll know there is a certain aesthetic young boy love and these books deliver it.
Reminded me immediately of Montehomo, the Hawks Claw, chief of the ever-victorious.
> At night, when the boys had gone to bed, the girls crept to their bedroom door, and listened to what they were saying. Ah, what they discovered! The boys were planning to run away to America to dig for gold: they had everything ready for the journey, a pistol, two knives, biscuits, a burning glass to serve instead of matches, a compass, and four roubles in cash. They learned that the boys would have to walk some thousands of miles, and would have to fight tigers and savages on the road: then they would get gold and ivory, slay their enemies, become pirates, drink gin, and finally marry beautiful maidens, and make a plantation.
https://americanliterature.com/author/anton-chekhov/short-st...
(Stretching the meaning of "American" literature there, and not a great translation, just the first I found)
It’s been more than forty years (good God!) since I read it, but I recall enjoying Virginibus Puerisque excessively. My delight was doubled when I found out that my mother had read and enjoyed it too. Travels with a Donkey was another hit for me.
I had less luck with Kidnapped. Haven’t tried Treasure Island.
Worth it for a boy's portrait of an archetypal pirate of the 1700s. Since portrayed by many, like Orson Welles (several times), Basil Rathbone, Tom Baker.
Surprised to see a slur on the front page of HN. Mostly that surprise comes from, "I wonder what the editorial guidelines for the site are? We're supposed to post titles without editing, but should slurs be partially obscured?"
Like, the author can write whatever they want. Let them use a slur in their title if that's what they are going to do. But on HN should slurs be copied exactly? Should they be edited in some way? (E.g. "G*psy", "G[slur]" etc) Does it matter what slur it is (presumably some are more offensive?)
Maybe the right thing to do is still post whatever the author titled their piece?
My understanding is that it's considered a slur by some when used to refer to the Romani people. According to Wikipedia, "Some Roma use and embrace this term"
As it's used here to just mean nomadic or itinerant it seems ok.
[flagged]
In some countries it's not considered a slur. In the UK, the government's list of ethnic groups contains 'Gypsy or Irish Traveller' - https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/style-gui....
IMO it's up to the Romani to decide not the UK census site.
But in fact it seems to be the term used by some Romani groups
> The term Gypsy, which originates in the word "Egypt", mistakenly believed to be the original homeland of the Gypsies, has been controversial.[8] Some Romani activists reject the term, but it is embraced by others.[8] Although the term "Roma" was endorsed in place of "Gypsies" at the first World Roma Congress in London,[9] many Romani people in Britain prefer to call themselves Gypsies, or names that include the term such as Romani Gypsies or Romany Gypsies.[10][11][5][12][8][13] They also commonly refer to themselves as Romani or Romanies.[14]
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy,_Roma_and_Traveller)
I believe (but can't find a clear source) that there are also Native American groups that prefer to be called Indian. This is a close analogy Egypt <-> Romani, India <-> Native Americans.
But it is true that many people only recently stopped using "gypped" as a slur. My kid was reading A Wrinkle in Time and looking for vocabulary words the other day, and I had to tell her that "gypped" was probably not appropriate for her homework and that we don't use that word anymore. So that's one reason to be aware that "Gypsy" is controversial. In my experience, many people are not aware of this fact at all because it so rarely comes up.
It's not only present in the title. Midway through: "Louis’s mother, was a more joyful figure, and proved to be resilient after her husband’s death, sailing with Louis’s gypsy family to the South Seas."
I'm inclined to think the author is aware of modern preferences, and that Stevenson's family may have referenced themselves this way.
That's true although "Roma" is a more sensitive (and accurate) description. The linked article is still a bit weird, as RLS does not appear to be Roma or even a vagabond/itinerant figure. He just travelled a lot.
I believe Roma is a very continental European (German?) term. I’ve only ever heard it in the context of “Sinti und Roma.” In any case it A) refers to a specific subset of the broader “Gypsy” sects and B) is virtually unknown in America.
In the US there are “Gypsy” and “Irish Travellers,” with the latter being a specific subset like Roma, and even then I’ve only heard the term used regionally, e.g. in Augusta, SC where a population lives.
The communities I'm in in America avoid the use of the term precisely because it's an exonym. Around here people use Roma or Traveller.
Granted my sample size is O(100), but that's not nothing either. Although I tend to roll in more progressive circles.
In the US, where this publication is based, it’s pretty universally frowned upon to use an ethnic group name as a metaphor for a character trait.
It’s also a bad editorial decision. Here we are debating the headline and not even talking about the article.
>Here we are debating the headline and not even talking about the article
Your reaction to a thing comes from you, not from the thing.
> debating the headline > not even talking about the article
Both typical around these parts.
I suspect the author or publisher may have chosen the name of the book for that attention-drawing controversiality. RLS was not the healthiest author and partly 'wandered' in search of better prospects than those of Old Blighty.
Authors can illicit reactions by word choice; it's part of the job. "Know thy audience" for a reason.
It seems to me that "peak sensitivity" with regards to potentially offensive words and ideas was reached in 2020-1 and the US seems to be on the downward trajectory since then, with the slope of that trajectory vastly increasing in 2025.
So this editorial decision might be just part of this overall trend.
Plot twist: yes it's an insensitive term, and it appears to be gratuitously applied to Stevenson. But not without precedent. Phillip Callow wrote in an earlier book "Louis became in turn a bohemian dandy, a literary gypsy..." Notably not literally a gypsy. But an interesting convergence in choice of words.
interesting question: if you've genuinely _never_ heard that X is a slur, and you innocently use X, is it offensive?
I for instance never had heard anything negative about the word "gypsy" so didn't get a feeling of the term being crass.
The answer to your question is "yes, but typically only very mildly".
Offense is not some Boolean, and intent matters in determining how offense something is.
For example, a kid reading Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn might unknowingly repeat a word they learned from that book that we consider extremely offensive today. We'd probably all pause that conversation and explain that they should not use that word.
Ideally, most folks upon learning that a word is offensive go, "oh, apologies, I had no idea" and the other party goes, "No problem, now you know" and everyone moves on. Doesn't have to escalate, doesn't need to be bigger than that.