Holy fuck, this is the stupidest thing I've read in a while.

[conuly]

There aren't any words to describe this. Just go click the link. And read safe, guys!

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

Because removing words from dictionaries will totally mean people stop using them. Let alone using them inappopriately because they don't know exactly what they mean because they can't look them up.

Am I missing something

[(Anonymous)]

Now I need to know why you thing this is stupid because I have my own theory but I don't know if they are the same.

A Smith

Re: Am I missing something

[conuly]

It's just a massive big ball o' stupid. I mean, first of all - banning a dictionary? What are kids going to use to look up words? And second, being shocked that it has concepts like "oral sex" in it? Of course it does! And it talks about it in the dryest possible terms, but heaven forbid your kid LEARN something.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

But won't somebody think of the children! (Which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, my least favourite reactionary phrase.)

[conuly]

Won't somebody think that the children might want to be educated?

[leora.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, dictionaries. Can't we just put a sticker on them that says Warning: Contains language. ?

[sayga.livejournal.com]

LOL. Great warning label!

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

As a resident of said stupid county, I'm sitting here trying in vain to get the steam to stop coming out of my ears in order to figure out who I write to about this.

[conuly]

Good luck.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

The quote about how it's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but they will to make sure there's nothing else sexual or graphic in it says it all. They're just looking for things to get into a tizzy about. Sad really, that someone would take up time trying to ban a dictionary instead of say, volunteering to be a teacher's aid.

[conuly]

What's funny is I don't think it's hard to read a dictionary at all. I enjoy it. (And strange as it is, I think I need more of them. The ones we have are all quite old, and my life isn't complete without a few new ones.)

[becoming-mother.livejournal.com]

...I have no words. And not because someone has taken my dictionary away, although it seems oddly appropriate.

ARGH!

[conuly]

You can have one of ours. We've got well over a dozen at last count (and that doesn't count the various foreign language/English and foreign language/other foreign language and foreign language IN foreign language ones!)

Yessirree, it's just three steps away from a brothel in here. A bawdy BOOK brothel, that is!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well, if the kids can't look it up in the school dictionary, they'll just have to ask their friends, won't they? Or look it up on the Internet; I'm sure they will find some fascinating definitions THERE.

I don't know what's so hard about sitting and reading the dictionary. I read the dictionary a lot when I was a schoolgirl; it was often the most interesting book in the classroom.

What I wonder is why oral sex is even in the dictionary - not because it's graphically defined, but because it's two words. Define oral, define sex, and let the kiddies put one and one together for themselves. How are they supposed to learn to think, if everything's handed to them all pre-assembled?

[conuly]

Some dictionaries do put "oral sex" under "oral". But even though it's two words, it's really one lexical unit. It seems fair to list it separately lest kids get the idea that oral sex = kissing.

[(Anonymous)]

This was my thinking and I had to google for an hour trying to solve this thought and the only thing I can say that makes it make sense are the words 'real estate' and 'peanut butter'.

These are compound words, and as I found out, there are three types of compound words. Yet I attest that unlike real estate and peanut butter, oral sex is a combination of two words that you can look up independently and find out the definitions of each to understand the term. I think that would negate the need for it to rate an entry of its own, especially when there are two words for it depending on what sex is on the receiving end.

Everyone would have just saved the headache because the words around fellatio and cunnilingus probably aren't looked up much anyway, thus the purpose is served without the controversy. Unless they are actually reading every word then all bets are off.

Any word if they objected to the plain old entry for 'Sex'?

A Smith

[conuly]

Any word if they objected to the plain old entry for 'Sex'?

Oh, probably.

I shudder to think what they'd think if they found out that FUCK is in there!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

If there were definitions for fellatio and cunnilingus in that dictionary, I'm sure the people objecting would have screamed even harder.

Kids like to look up 'dirty words', and the more their parents and teachers try to hide and forbid such things, the more they're driven to find out. So it wouldn't necessarily be that children accidentally happen upon the words for oral sex while looking up something else; they might well be deliberately seeking them.

Heh, maybe we ought to find a way to associate math and science with sex, then forbid them to children. Just a thought.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

*cries*