Bowdlerized, really. I’ve got just one example right now, but as a fan of the columns since the mid-80s I’ll be looking for other examples of cleaning up, toning down, the original words of The Master.
From The Straight Dope (paperback book, 1984), p. 229:
USA Today * once quoted President Reagan as follows: “All the wastes for a year from a nuclear-power plant could be stored under a desk” – but I won’t believe him until old Cecil says he’s right. Be my guide. --Perplexed, Los Angeles*
You did right to come to me, P., since Ron was once again indulging his penchant for politically convenient oversimplification. We note in the president’s quote the weaselly presence of the word “could.” What he was saying was that if the spent fuel from a nuclear power plant were reprocessed (i.e., if the reusable portions were separated out from the unsalvageable trash), you’d conceivably end up with just a few cubic feet of waste. This would indeed fit under a desk, and I might add that if Ron were to sit down at that desk, the whole country might be a lot better off.
[snip]
The upshot of all this is that Regan’s [sic] statement consists of 1 part fact to about 99 parts jive – about what you’d expect from a guy who once claimed pollution was caused by trees.
Compare and contrast to the current online version of the same column (bolding mine): Could a year’s waste from a nuclear power plant be stored under a desk? - The Straight Dope
Dear Perplexed:
You know I loved the Gipper, but this was one of those cases where he was indulging his penchant for politically convenient oversimplification. We note in the quote the weasely presence of the word “could.” What he was saying was that if the spent fuel from a nuclear power plant were reprocessed (i.e., if the reusable portions were separated out from the unsalvageable trash), you’d conceivably end up with just a few cubic feet of waste. This would indeed fit under a desk, and I confess in moments of irritation I felt that if Ron had sat down at that desk, the whole country would have been a lot better off.
[snip]
Politicians can say what they like, but nuclear waste won’t just go away.
The last sentence in the original was deleted entirely and replaced with a generalization that strikes me as ironically weaselly.
I’m curious to know the reason for the changes to the original, and whether very many other classic columns have been similarly cleaned up. If so, it’s an unfortunate trend.
From the changes, it sounds like maybe Cece had an affair with the former President and human and the copy was toned down for the paperback .
In other words, the “original” (paperback version) may have been the one that was bowdlerized.
The one version was before Reagan’s death, the other after. De mortuis and all that sort of thing.
Besides, back in 1984, we had no idea of how truly bad a president could be.
Some of the columns have been altered from the original.
Some were edited for the books for various reasons, updates and whatnot.
When we were on AOL some of the columns were edited again to fit AOL’s Terms of Service.
A few have been updated because of changes over the passage of time.
A lot of things can happen in 36 years.
Just be glad there’s no CGI slugs.
I didn’t know that about AOL, thanks. After seeing the Reagan column I was afraid that some of the raunchier classics had been sanitized to conform with more recent standards, but it appears they mostly haven’t been. Whew.
