howverychaotic asked:
I'm listening to the audiobook of Neverwhere on Audible and I was very surprised to find a casual racial slur in the prose. I checked a pdf online (sorry), and saw the text was different and had replaced the word "piker" with "pipsqueak" in chapter nine.
I'm glad edits like that can happen. Is it usually your idea, or the publisher? I can't imagine you'd be endlessly checking your old books to edit.
I’ve never heard of “piker” used as a racial slur. The only definition I’ve ever run across was that of someone who does things, especially financial things, in a small way – per Dictionary.com it’s
- a person who does anything in a contemptibly small or cheap way.
- a stingy, tight-fisted person; tightwad.
ORIGIN OF PIKER
1275–1325; Middle English: petty thief, equivalent to pik(en) to pick1 + -er1; compare dial. (N England, Scots, Hiberno-English ) pike to pick
And Per Miriam-Webster:
1: one who gambles or speculates with small amounts of money
2: one who does things in a small way
Etymology
pike to play cautiously, of unknown origin
(Both of them are good at warning you if you are using an offensive term, and neither of them do.)
I checked Wiktionary and found many more definitions, none of them racist or offensive:
I changed it to pipsqueak because I liked the word better, and because more people knew it in the UK.