UKH

Although some would argue Chudliegh belongs at the bottom of Bristol docks, I don't think it would do the polish any good at all.

Jollies Route (HVD)

Adjusting my guidebooks as we speak.

I must be missing the gist of this. I have never climbed on this crag, but the title of your post is not explained in the text, or the link to the route description. I must be thick.

I think he forgot that some people don't see Chudleigh as the centre of the climbing universe like he does! The route he linked used to be known by a different name. Someone on the thread about controversial route names suggested, rather optimistically I thought, that the name might have been an anagram for 'wall overhang groove slab'.

Was the change made by Rockfax? I know that I can't change Rockfax grades on crags that I moderate, so I assume changes to route names would be similarly restricted?

I think the replacement is a smart choice. It sounds superficially like the original so it gives some kind of link for those who knew it. People who appreciate efforts to avoid giving needless offence can be glad it has changed and since 'woke' is so often used with a sneer, those so inclined can choose to view it as a sarcastic jab at snowflake millennials.

Good job I realised you meant acronym just before I went mental trying to make a sensible sounding route name from the letters of 'wall overhang groove slab'!

Thanks for the explanation. I'd forgotten but my logbook tells me I did this (by its original name) on my one visit to Chudleigh in 1986 stopping off during a drive from Lancs to Torquay to attend a  business conference. I soloed a few and self top roped a few and it never once occurred to me to go back.

1 dislike from me. Can't you post this crap in the pub, where it dies after a week?

Edit: sorting out the fucking autocorrect errors

Wokes is not the original route name.

Presumably it was the controversial Wogs?

Woah..... plenty of people triggered! Well enough to dislike but not comment!

To be fair those dislikes are fully deserved as I took the opportunity to go full clickbait, I just couldn't resist. Whilst I would love to, I can't leave this thread without further comment, it's not fair to the standard of discussion we should be having about these things.

Wogs, a classic 3* route at Chudliegh in Devon, first climbed in the 1920s has been re-named in the UKC logbooks to Wokes. I would see that as a Rocktalk subject.

As Chudliegh is a "Rockfax" crag and as such the logbook entry links up to the app the crag moderator can't even alter grades so I would expect the renaming to be a Rockfax action.

The name is controversial, the Nick White South Devon and Dartmoor guide makes a comment on this in the route description. Although interestingly Rockfax do not mention this in their write up.

If I am replying properly it is only fair to give my view, which is the original route name is a racist slur and a product of the era in which the first ascent took place. Changing the name to something that is less offensive is a good thing, although a note about the original route name and why it was changed in subsequent guidebooks and UKC logbook would help educate about the history of the route and why it is not acceptable for the route to be known by its original name.

I suppose I am interested in peoples views on re naming historical routes and how that process should be undertaken.

Does this mean that people will soon also be ticking the classic VS 'One Less Person' at Shorn Cliff?

I assume so. Either way, the question in the title is irrelevant: I suspect HVD at Chudleigh will be easier covered in something - anything - other than the rock itself.

Fun academic point for debate: Has it been renamed? I mean it's not like we would claim Boris Johnson has been renamed Bojo just because a certain section of society has decided to start using that name to refer to him. To me UKC/Rockfax is not the ultimate arbiter or route names, the route name can only change if it is changed by the first ascentionist (or changed with their agreement).

In terms of this specific instance, I couldn't care less if the name is changed or not. In terms of the wider argument, I am uneasy with the idea of re-writing history because we don't like what it contained. But maybe this approach has merit as a method for society to symbolically move on from and distance ourselves from previous versions or our society to which we no longer wish to accord respect. For comparison, think about how Petrograd, no, wait, Leningrad, no, wait, St Petersburg and Tsaritsyn/Stalingrad/Volgograd have been progressively renamed to remove symbols of a negative past. Maybe the line in the sand should be more about remembering the past but refusing to give it dignity and respect of which it is undeserving in the present.

When you see things this way, the removal of statues from a place of veneration (outdoor city display) to a place of (theoretically neutrally viewed) historical information like a museum seems like a wholesome method of moving forward. Similarly maybe the changing of the name of this route while still preserving the original in a footnote successfully treads the line between preserving history but not holding it up as still reasonable in our time.

Seems to me that America has a pretty big problem with an inability to distance itself from flawed former versions of its society and their symbols.

Here are some pieces of information to make this debate as honest and useful as possible.

This is the author's note from the most recent definitive guide in 2018:

'It is impossible to describe routes hereabouts without repeatedly referring to the well-known landmark route of Wogs. I apologise for any offence caused by the name. Whilst it stands out, it is not the only offensive name in the guide. It is not my job to rewrite history- it was named in 1923.

The description begins:

'This shares the twin honours of being the first and the least 'PC' in the guide.'

There are a few other points that I would like to make on this matter:

There has been quite a bit of campaigning in the 'Shire' about the during the last week. This has focused on this route alone. If you are going to 'do something about this route name', you must surely have to tackle the names of other routes at Chudleigh such as; Tar Baby, Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo and White Life (next to Black Death).

If we are concerned about other names which might offend, are Whoremoans and Whoremoans Erect acceptable in 2020? These routes are at Chudleigh alone without thinking about route names in the wider SW or country.

In terms of re-naming, this is not a job for rock fax/UKC. The sole reason for this is that they do not hold the definitive record. I am also not saying that this is a job for the CC either. The fair way to do this would be to put it to some kind of local consensus. I think that Prouse's Climb would be more appropriate than Wokes and would reflect the important history of a route that predates all other climbing on Devon limestone by 35 years.

It would be good if the thread title could be changed to something less flippant if there is to be sensible discussion here.

The shorn cliff route is named after an Elvis Costello song.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver%27s_Army

James Mann

The problem in the US is endemic racism today not historical symbols.

Good move by RockFax and about time too. I’ve previously pointed out routes have been renamed for decades without a fuss about the historical record or some such nonsense: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/ukc/the_perfect_line_naming_and_claiming-...
 

(said the pink-faced old man)

Renaming to avoid offence is ok as long as the historical record is maintained (in a note probably).

If you don't keep a record then all the "offensive" history will be lost which is in itself potentially offensive since it is in some ways denying that oppression ever took place.

The main problem I can see is where do you draw the line? Is something (a route name) actually offensive, or is it only perceived as being offensive by PC white liberals (is that what wokes are? I have difficulty keeping up with modern terminology 😁).

Wogs is an obvious one but other suggestions in the thread less so, and the more everyone looks at these things, the more sensitised we all become to these "offensive" names. Whether that's a good or bad thing is another area of discussion.

I don't think any of those other examples are in the same class as the one under discussion.

As far as I was aware, 'Tar Baby' isn't any kind of slur but the set of stories it comes from is controversial for having a white author adopting a rather stereotyped African-American voice. I had to search online to find out that it has sometimes been used as a slur. But that seems to be quite an obscure usage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar-Baby#Racist_interpretation

And there's one version of the 'Eeny Meeny Miny Mo' rhyme containing a racial slur, but entirely innocent versions predate the offensive one by decades.

Is 'White Life' any more than an inversion of 'Black Death'? Which presumably refers to the plague rather than anything race-related?

I'm sure there are other names that will be harder judgements but from the ones you've presented here, I think it's extremely easy to draw a line.

Route names with racial connotations seem like the easy bit. The much larger group with sexual connotations could prove more problematic, particularly as it seems that more and more women are taking up the sport. 

Don't we already have that problem? Was there ever a time when a guidebook would print a route name that was grossly offensive to popular sensibilities?

Presumably there was always a discussion on controversial route names and all that's changes is popular sensibilities?

I thought that - but I gave it a bit more thought when these protests kicked off and tried to imagine how I would feel as a black person surrounded by constant reminders of how the western world treated my race as a subhuman commodity over a sustained period of time.

I decided that I would probaby feel really quite aggrieved, and so I have no problem with this current spate of cultural cleansing.

Interesting, it is worth noting that in a similar area of the crag, first climbed at a similar time are the routes Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. So I would agree that within that context the route is much more likely to be named after the story than an obscure (certainly within the UK) slur.

I think this is great example of how times and context change. I grew up using eeny, meeny, miny, mo to decide playground choices, however I had no idea that there was a version containing a racist slur until the Jeremy Clarkson thing hit the news. I think that’s one of those things where it says a lot more about the person willing to use a word like that than those route names causing offence, particularly when the nature of those routes is about picking between equally unappealing slippery lines next to each other.

Absolutely, it undisputed that wogs is a racist slur, it was at time the route was first climbed and it still is now. The previous two versions of the definitive guide have seen fit to make an apology for the name of the route.

There were offensively named routes from another age.

And then there were none.

Reminds of the Nirvana song 'Rape Me', which Kurt Cobain explicitly stated was an 'ANTI' rape song....