> Quoting Barks himself in a letter to John Spicer, April 11, 1960
> (reprinted in The Duckburg Times ~#12):
> 
>    The "Larkies" in the story of the Golden Fleece had to be so named
>    because the editor objected to Harpy, a "Harpie" being a slang version
>    of street walker."
> 
That incident has always struck me as editorial caution taken to its
most absurd degree. "Harpy" is a legitimate mythological name. There's
even a bird called a harpy eagle. As far as I know, the term "harpie"
as a slang word for a prostitute, which I've never heard or read anywhere
else, must have been pretty obscure and nearly extinct by the time Barks
used it. Since the word had a well-known Classical reference and Barks
used it correctly, it was stupid not to use it. It might be argued that
changing the word actually detracted from the story's educational
merit, since kids reading it would be that less well-instructed about
Greek myths (and the children's books that retell Greek myths do use
"harpy").
	Well, times change. By the mid-'60s, Stan Lee got away with calling
the Norse god Thor's girlfriend "Sif." I'd be curious to know if he ran
into any flak from the Comics Code about it, since the term "syph" was
definitely well-known as a slang shortening of syphilis to every boy
above the age of about 12 at the time. I recall some comics-reading
pals of mine chortling over it: "Heh-heh! Her name is 'Sif'! Heh-heh!"
It was certainly a lot more questionable than harpy. And of course Stan
Lee had the ultimate defense: Sif was the character's genuine name in
the Norse myths. But as I said, times change, and Marvel's Thor comic
was aimed at a somewhat older audience than Dell's Disney comics.
	I had a passing thought to wonder if Barks might approve some
subsequent reprinting of the Golden Fleece story that would replace
"larkies" with Harpies, since that was his original intent...but the
story has been like that for decades, and I've come to think of larkies
as a uniquely Barks creation rather than simply borrowed mythology.

--Dwight Decker

