back to article California school pulls 'oral sex' dictionary

A California school last week pulled the Merriam-Webster 10th edition dictionary from fourth and fifth-grade classrooms, after one parent "complained about a child stumbling across definitions for 'oral sex'". The Menifee Union School District moved with lightning speed to protect Oak Meadows Elementary School's nine and ten- …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This whole story

    leaves a bitter taste in ones mouth.

  2. Ben Klumaster
    Thumb Up

    Children can be very understanding

    This will be excellent. The children will see the teacher checking a list for which children should receive which dictionaries, and then they'll wonder why. Then someone will find out and they'll all go and look up oral sex in their MW dictionaries, and then they'll brutally mock the children whose parents asked for the sex-free version.

  3. Torben Mogensen

    Make parents provide the dictionaries they want

    The school should add a clause to the form they send to the parents, such that parents not wanting their kid to use M-W, agree to provide their kid with a good dictionary of their own choice. The school could ask for a minimum number of entries in the dictionary, so the parents don't give their kids inadequate dictionaries.

  4. Real Ale is Best
    FAIL

    What a bunch of wankers.

    Nuff Said.

    1. Happy Geek

      It's all so hard to swallow.

      I agree Real Ale is Best.

      I'd like to add a word -

      ignorant

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      here it errr comes ...

      That will be because they're doing it wrong, having never found the correct definition in a dictionary .....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I still have the pocket Collins I used at school

    which helpfully has all the rude words underlined, thanks to some of my more erudite classmates

    1. Captain TickTock
      Coat

      Pocket Collins...

      ...has great potential as a euphemism...

      Mine's the one with deep, deep, deep pockets.

  6. Paul Crawford Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Really?

    one parent "complained about a child stumbling across definitions for 'oral sex'"

    I assume that experience left a bad taste in the parents' mouths, though probably the mistake was simply a slip of the tongue.

    But really, such things are easy to find on the internet and ignorance is a far more foolish thing than a child being able to look something up and find a factually correct explanation.

    Paris, a lot of slipped tongue there...

  7. NogginTheNog

    Careful with that education mom and pop!

    Don't want your kids to end up knowing a lot more, and perhaps not growing up to be as ignorant or reactionary, as you are...!

  8. Dave Bell

    A word by any other name?

    Times have changed.

    When I was that age, at school, we didn't have what might be called a full dictionary available.

    The way schools are split by age-group might be awkward, and these kids might be at the bottom of a "middle school". In which case the parents who started this need to grow up a bit. But if it's the last year of what might be called a primary or elementary school, I wonder if they need a dictionary which is that complete.

    But maybe the teachers weren't so good in my time. I had to buy my own copy of Fowler.

  9. Charlie Oscar

    fart. fiddle fornicate

    We only used dictionarys to look up words like this back when I were a lad

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Precisely!

      It is good to see youngsters being able to use the damn thing, rather than removing the only incentive to do so.

  10. Stef 4
    Thumb Down

    Happy days

    Happy days at school, when we'd all take turns looking up 'rude' words.

    Won't somebody think of the children?!?!

  11. Andus McCoatover
    Coat

    Quote error alert!

    "School board president Rita Peters protested: "If we’re going to pull a book ..."

    Nah. They just gobbled them up.

    OK, gone.

  12. Code Monkey

    Good lord

    Kids have been looking up sex words in dictionaries since there have been such thing as dictionaries. It's part of growing up and being literate.

    1. Tim Schomer
      Thumb Up

      I seem to remember...

      ... not so long ago, certain celebrities trying to get the word C*NT into the Oxford English Dictionery ON TV!!!! (BBC 2 as I recall)

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Oh yeah

    Parents will now receive a letter informing them of the decision and those "who do not want their child using the Merriam-Webster can sign a form at the bottom of the letter and return it to the school".

    So when Mum & Dad sign the form saying you cant use the MW dictionary you just go to your mates who are allowed to use it and ask them to show you what it says. Doh.

  14. Ralph B
    Thumb Down

    Muppet Gayda

    > One dad said: "Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school will be the Bert and Ernie Dictionary".

    Hmm. Unlikely that they'd use a dictionary from a couple of gay guys.

  15. Oliver 7
    Stop

    We Brits are much more liberated!

    American culture is (generally) very prudish! I distinctly remember looking up the F word and C word in the dictionary when I was in primary school. There's never been a fuss about reference tomes in this country as far as I can recall. We even read E.M. Forster's Maurice in sixth year English.

  16. bobbles31

    This rock music has got to STOP!

    An obscure quote for the geek of a more discerning age!

  17. DRendar
    Joke

    School board president Rita Peters protested:

    that she had a ridiculous name.

    ROFL Rita Peters! LOL

    1. seanj
      Joke

      Re: Rita Peters

      Hey, she's the finest girl you'll ever wanna meet!

  18. Psmiffy

    Wikipedia

    For goodness sake don't let them NEAR the internet or they will be looking up stuff on Wikipedia.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 13:10

    Well, I had the Oxford schools dictionary .... didn't have the words underlined but we looked them all up ... after all, why else would 10 year olds use a dictionary?

  20. Red Bren
    Flame

    Lets have ourselves a good ol' book burnin'

    It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a child in possession of a good dictionary will immediately look up all the rude words.

    Perhaps they would also like to ban the bible? It's packed with obscenities and violence...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Not just that

      You forget that the bible may be packed with obscene acts and (what some would deem) unjustifiable violence but it has got a positive side - your kids wont need to learn anything about genetics, astrophysics, geology, palaeontology or microbiology (to name a few)

      The reasons are simple:

      Genes can't be real because god made us as we are and evolution is a lie.

      Astrophysics says that the universe is older than 6000 years and we know that can't be true

      Geology says the same thing.

      Those pesky palaeontologists keep trying to show that evolution took place.

      Microbiology is also a lie - we all know that diseases are created and spread by god to kill those evil unbelievers/homosexuals/commies/terrorists.

      Give those kids a fucking dictionary and a few science books and America might end up with a more educated generation less laible to knee-jerk reactions...

  21. Lord Zedd
    Big Brother

    Rather than pulling the dictionary

    ...they are going to need to pull every child with knowledge of the subject out of school! By pulling the book and making news of it, every child that hears of the story/controversy will want to know what "oral sex" is.

  22. Gerard Krupa

    But how...

    ...are they ever going to land a role in a major Hollywood blockbuster if they go into the director's office not knowing what oral sex is?

  23. Richard IV
    Coat

    In other (good) books...

    " I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."

    Song of Solomon 2:3

    -- Mommeeeee!

    -- What's this? <Flicks through Ezekiel as well> This is pure filth! Must... Protect... Children...

    Mine's the one with the much-highlighted Old Testament in the pocket

  24. Kevin Lomax

    This sucks....

    nuff said

  25. Rolf Howarth
    Happy

    Not just kids

    Hey, it's not just kids who enjoy looking up naughty words in dictionaries!

    I've got a leather bound copy of a dictionary from 1749 and it's quite fun to see what words that lists, eg.

    "DIL'DO [contracted from the Italian diletto, q.d. a Woman's Delight, or of our Word Dally q.d. a Thing to play withal] Penis Succadaneous, called in Lombardy, Passatempo."

    Hours of amusement :-)

    1. shay mclachlan

      clarification needed

      I've got a leather bound copy of a dictionary from 1749 and it's quite fun to see what words that lists, eg.

      "DIL'DO [contracted from the Italian diletto, q.d. a Woman's Delight, or of our Word Dally q.d. a Thing to play withal] Penis Succadaneous, called in Lombardy, Passatempo."

      Hours of amusement :-)

      Hours of amusement? What, reading the dictionary or er fnarr, fnarr.

  26. Matt D 3
    FAIL

    Dictionary.

    Johnson: (to George) So, ahem, tell me, sir, what words particularly interested

    you?

    George: Oh, er, nothing... Anything, really, you know...

    Johnson: Ah, I see you've underlined a few (takes dictionary, reads): `bloomers';

    `bottom'; `burp'; (turns a page) `fart'; `fiddle'; `fornicate'?

    George: Well...

    Johnson: Sir! I hope you're not using the first English dictionary to look up

    rude words!

    Edmund: I wouldn't be too hopeful; that's what all the other ones will be

    used for.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    I cant find it in my dictionary....

    ....so i'll go and look on google and get pictures and video!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Growing up now Verboten

    But hey, that's in line with government policy, innit? Or general PC and moral panic madness. I never know which.

  29. David Edwards
    Joke

    They have "Blown it out of all Proportion"

    PS Dictionary's tell you what the constituents and ratios are for how to make gunpowder, so they are "Bomb making manuals" as well as sex manuals.

    1. The Beer Monster
      Grenade

      Umm...

      That would be "Dictionaries"...

  30. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Freaks!

    Why is it these self-appointed moral guardians are so f**ked in the head that they have to waste time going and deliberately looking for reasons to be outraged?! They could be putting that time to better use, cleaning sewers, licking toilet bowls, sniffing asbestos, anything infinitely more useful.

    Gosh! Shock! Horror! Kids are learning words? Oh no! Learning stuff on their own? Not being brainwashed by our sick and twisted ideas on what is and what isn't right?! Quick raise the independent thought alarms, this must be stopped!

    I would rather my kids read something like this, then came and asked me what it meant, then I can, with slightly embarrassed foot jiggling of course, try to give them a simple clear idea, so they don't go out and catch something unpleasant that needs medical umberellas to remove!!!

    GET A F**KING LIFE! Let the rest us sane people get on with ours!

  31. Craig 28

    Good grief

    On the initial point pulling a dictionary because of explicit words is rather ridiculous, maybe they need to make a "bible belt" edition for all the prudes over there.

    On the other hand I'm not sure "oral sex" should be in simply because it is a two word term the meaning of which is obvious from the words it is made up of. It is sex involving the mouth. Why does this need an entry? Equally I wouldn't expect there to be entries for anal sex, and for the same reason wouldn't expect entries for "fleece jacket" or "ear infection".

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lexicography

      The meaning of "oral sex" isn't totally obvious, especially if you're not already familiar with the activity. It could potentially mean something like phone sex if you compare it with "oral examination". In fact, when I was about 10 or so I had a conversation with a younger child who thought oral sex was "just talking". Of course I took the opportunity to demonstrate my superior knowledge and experience ...

      1. Brutus
        Black Helicopters

        @Lexicography

        I'm seriously concerned for you. You appear to have just admitted to inciting a minor to participate in a serious sexual offence with you! I don't think there is any statute of limitations on this sort of thing (ask the Vatican for a more informed legal opinion on this). As you are no longer a minor (I am making an assumption here), I am worried that the black helicopters will track you down and incarcerate you. Probably somewhere rather unpleasant.

  32. Deckchair
    Stop

    Hammer Time.

    "If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled."

    My word, how many are there?

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The father/uncle of this kid is a blatent peado

    The kid knows that giving 'oral sex' to someone is wrong at their age.....But if they don't know what it is then the adult abusing them can get away with it...I'd say send the feds around to his house to check out his shit...At the very least it would cause the fucking useless parent to be severly inconvenienced.

  34. Cameron Colley

    I may be imagining it.

    But ISTR that one teacher had a dictionary in which "fart" was described as "a small explosion between the legs" and "fuck" was "sexual intercourse between dogs".

  35. Paul 87

    Why has no one yet mentioned...

    ... the Bible? I mean have you actually read it? Most of the early sections are pure filth talking about rape, murder, incest and near constant fornication!

    Americans are weird IMO :)

  36. Fluffykins Silver badge

    Send all dictionaries to the Pope for checking

    After all, he's GOT to know all the rude words so he can tell whether people have been truly naughty or just misguided.

  37. Fluffykins Silver badge

    To anyone called Philippa

    Don't use the shortened version of your name in Sweden.

  38. William Towle
    Joke

    "It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary..."

    ...the story's a bit fragmented, but at least it explains each word as it goes along.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Coat

      @"It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary..."

      Yeah, but I skipped to the end and found that the Zebra did it...

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Rude Words

    poor children... i remember one of the more fun games to play was looking up rude words in the dictionary... seriously, those parents are extremely orotund.

  40. Bill Gould
    FAIL

    Damnable imbiciles.

    That is all.

  41. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    omg protect the kids

    I dun care if my kid cant not not spiel i want dem dictooneries burnd

    BURND I TEL U

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems to me...

    ...that if a kid is old / knowledgeable enough to read the definition and say, "Hmm, that sounds like fun", then the dictionary is the least of the parents' problems. And if not, then they'll just say, "What's the big deal?" and it hardly matters.

    Same thing with swearing - if your kid knows that "cock-chugging motherfucker" is terribly rude, then the ship has already sailed.

    Just to add some balance, it seems that over on the UK side of the pond, a company is getting flak because a character in one of their ads said something about girls dancing in frilly panties, so we USers don't appear to have a monopoly on ludicrous prudishness.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    This is another blow for freedom of speech

    Paris, because she knows all about blowing.

  44. Elmer Phud

    A Blow to Common Decency

    They thought it was something to get thier teeth in to.

    Give a child a dictionary and they will always look for the interesting bits.

  45. /dev/me
    Grenade

    Pfffffff

    You can never see, hear or even think about anything related to sexuality.

    But war, murder, guns and violence are fine. Double standard?

    1. MinionZero
      Unhappy

      I was thinking the same thing...

      It shows a typical American twisted hypocritical puritanical over reaction to anything relating to sex.

      (Anyone who doesn't accept this need only remember back to the American extreme over reaction to Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction". So she showed a tit and America has a fit and utterly freaks out. Meanwhile Europe is mostly like, whats the problem. Its really not such a big deal. Some parts of Europe have ancient statues that show far worse! ... yet we don't freak out about it).

      Meanwhile America has no problem with concepts of extreme violence.

      Don't believe me, ok then, so when are they going to ban the following words... Shooting, strangling, stabbing, decapitation, impalement, exsanguination, evisceration, guillotining, hanging, electrocution, lethal injection, beheading, gassing, poisoning, execution, capital punishment, killing and crucifixion.

      :(

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Bodes well

    for students who're not too keen on oral examinations then I'd have thought? You want to do what to me teacher? You filthy pig!

    Paris, 'cause she always got A+ for her oral exams.

  47. Captain Save-a-ho
    FAIL

    Protecting Children?

    As a parent, you want to protect your child from harm, like stopping him/her before they try to ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel or showing their friends your gun collection. Information, however, isn't a bad thing at all. You can and should discuss the child's curiosities, so they understand why people are reacting like described here. The kids won't get the big picture implications, but I think you hurt the child more by scolding them and put a prohibition on the topic. Doesn't mean you should get for them the Bert and Ernie's Red Hot Sesame Street Love video, but don't make them ashamed of perfectly natural curiosities.

    I agree with George Carlin on this one. People have put their kids on a pedestal and it's not healthy. Fuck the children.

    1. Tim Schomer
      Coffee/keyboard

      I think

      that last sentance could have been better phrased.

  48. The Indomitable Gall

    Shipping report...

    ...Rockall, Force 4, N by NW; teacup, force 10...

    At my primary school, we had kids dictionaries. Bigger print, simpler explanations, fewer rude words. This is not an affront to children's intelligence.

    In some other schools, they used "proper" dictionaries, dirty words and all. This was not an affront to decency. (Heck, we even had the "big dictionary" at the front of the class too, and another in the library.)

    To me, either policy is acceptable. If a particular school authority wants to change policy, that is acceptable too, and it's acceptable that a transitional period sees both in schools.

    What is unreasonable and unacceptable is that both sides make this out to be a major human rights crisis, and that these rights have to be protected on an individual-by-individual basis.

    It's not the kids who need to grow up, but everyone else.

    (Besides, when does a kid really need a dictionary anyway?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I'm assuming...

      ..that you don't have any kids then? Or if you do, they go to a school where they don't have English homework.

      You comments made perfect sense (and I agreed 100% with them) until your foot-note, which showed great ignorance. Delete that line and you are spot on.

  49. Dom 3

    And another book they should check closely...

    is of course the Bible.

    1. Ammaross Danan
      FAIL

      Ah!

      You must be the parent that complained!

      The issue we have here is the extreme (brainwashed?) religionists raising such a ruckus that the [silent] majority gets drowned out in the flood of [two] letters. All of these "sexuality" issues are because the parents of some children are so backwards as to forbid and scold (beat?) their children from mentioning anything of a sexual nature because "God has deemed it unseemly" or somesuch lunacy. If God doesn't want us having sex, perhaps he shouldn't have "created" our complimentary bits then perhaps? I see it more as a "here you go, now use responsibly" kinda thing. But that's just me.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would force them to use...

    Roger's profanisaurus (The Magna Farta) instead - perhaps they would try and find the non-rude words (but I don't think there are any).

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    What's even better?

    I have an online dictionary at home that actually pronounces all the good words. Yeah, and the kids have access.....

    stupid wankers

  52. DI_Wyman
    WTF?

    Well give me a Monica!

    Surely little Jonnie or Sally could go home, log on and browse for the meaning of the naughty words AND probably get images!

    Better to educate in the classroom than round the back of the bike sheds of a lunchtime?

  53. Alan Esworthy
    Grenade

    Fscking condescending arrogant bureaucrat

    School board president Rita Peters protested: "If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled. The standard needs to be consistent. We don’t need parents setting policy."

    Read that again: "We don't need parents setting policy."

    Someone ought to put a dead mackerel under her driver's seat when her car's parked in the sun on a warm day.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I agree with her

      It's quite likely that the parents of a typical school run the spectrum from "Life of hard knocks; they're only there because military school was full" to "my little Johnny's delicate retinas must not be sullied by even the merest hint of impropriety". Add various interpretations of religion, as pertaining to their progeny. Then add anyone with a cause/agenda/opinion/bee in their bonnet; both for themselves (PTA infighting, for example) and the fruits of their loins.

      Only considering the sane ones, fuck no, you don't want parents setting policy. An input into how you're doing and how things may be improved, for sure. Policy, no.

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Precisely the wrong approach

    Oral sex... that's where you just sit there and talk about it, right?

    Dictionaries are there to inform people of the meaning of words orphrases they don't already know. As a child, I used to consider the dictionaries that included a definition for "fuck" to be the best dictionaries (very few of them did). A dictionary is one of the last places I would want to see censorship!

    Would you rather have your child looking up "oral sex" in the Merriam-Webster, or googling for it on the internet? From what I've seen, the 'net offers a lot more, uh, "graphic" explanations of the meaning of the phrase!

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Taking this to it's logical extreme

    There a book currently in circulation that contains descriptions of adultery, incest, murder, torture, and homosexual rape, and yet this book is readily made available to young, impressionable readers... I say this book should be banned immediately! The name of this obscene tome that is corrupting the minds of today's youth is "The Holy Bible".

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Get off my lawn!

    Damn kids, looking up the meaning of rude words in the dictionary!

    Why can't they just learn the meaning of those words out on the street like we did?

    1. LaeMing
      Joke

      Tattletale

      A FAR more reliable source of correct information about sex is schoolyard tattletale. Who needs dictionaries? Let them learn by ill-informed experimentation, I say!

  57. rollseyes
    Thumb Up

    Make war not love!

    I for sure hope they have sufficient vocabulary for guns, weapons, hunting, blood and gore to suit American morals.

  58. Andrew Newstead

    Just waiting...

    ..to see the comments counter clock up 69...

  59. Edge7406

    Oh lordy

    I am sure that when I was at school the rudest word in the disctionary was bastard. My, how times have changed.

  60. irishcritcofstuff

    Dey turk rrrr jobssssssss.....

    And thats the mentality of these people.....

  61. Chris Romero

    As parent of a 4th grader I find this absurd!

    A well known, reliable, and trustworthy DICKtionary being pulled from the shelves for providing a description to a word?!? Opps! Pardon my poor spelling ;-).

    As a parent of a fourth grader I find it ludicrous California must pander to every bit of political correctness in order to save our parents from having to be, well, parents. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has been an valuable resource for longer than I can remember. Certainly longer than I have been alive.

    Yes, there are some definitions that might offend some people. However, that is where the guiding presence of an active parents can help to lead their child towards the corrects use of a reference. But make no mistake about the fact children learn in many ways. Their inquisitiveness is ours. Most of the time the discovery process is an innocent, wide open, intake of knowledge and exploration. Sometimes it is a vulgar foray into the specifics of a term. I highly doubt the child of a caring parent will get hung up on a single entry in a dictionary.

    Banning the book is not the problem. Active parents who stand by the wayside is problem. Of course you probably see those same lazy parents as fodder for the evening news in a story about their child's' unguided excursions on the internet. At that time you will see those parents try to blame someone else rather than accept the responsibility they should. No, I say the real problem is extremist P.C. parent who seeks not to educate but instead to try ineffectively regulate and restricts their child's' ability to learn and grow.. And so be default your children, and mine, are also affected by those ill-intentioned and uneducated parents.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      "Sometimes it is a vulgar foray into the specifics of a term."

      Vulgar describing most of the little scrote in this district would be putting it politely.

  62. SirTainleyBarking
    Happy

    God help us

    If they remember what mummys clothing catalogue is used for by horny teenagers.

    Todays words are Underwear and Section....

    (Only adults of a certain age will rememeber that delight, before single handed surfing the internet)

  63. Snert Lee

    Why stop there?

    After all, the dictionary just reports on words used in the language. Obviously the real culprit is the language itself which allows these ideas to be expressed. Stop using the language and there will be no more need for dictionaries. Problem resolved.

  64. Graham Marsden
    WTF?

    If I was their teacher...

    ... I'd set them an assignment on the Thomas Bowdler:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

    (Followed by one on the First Amendment...!)

  65. Goat Jam
    FAIL

    Crap Dictionary

    Why do modern dictionaries insist on including phrases these days? "oral" and "sex" are both words, and bother (I assume) are in the aforementioned dictionary.

    "Another noted: "It’s not such a bad thing for a kid to have the wherewithal to go and look up a word he might have heard on the playground. You have to draw the line somewhere. What are they going to do next? Pull encyclopedias because they list parts of the human anatomy like the penis and vagina?""

    The difference is that "oral sex" is a phrase while "penis" and "vagina" are both words.

    dic·tion·ar·y

    1: A reference book containing an alphabetical list of words, with information given for each word, usually including meaning, pronunciation, and etymology.

    I don't approve of sanitizing rude or objectional material from dictionaries, but there is no need to expand on the definition and purpose of a dictionary just so you can pretend to be hip and current.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Grenade

      Why do modern dictionaries insist on including phrases these days?

      Because those phrases are part of the language and the point of a dictionary is to enable people to comprehend the language as it is use.

      For instance you could look up the words "dick" and "head" separately but...

      1. Goat Jam
        Pint

        OK

        Dick + Head,

        1. Graham Marsden

        But seriously. Look up the definition on dictionary in an actual dictionary. In almost every instance it will say something along the lines of "a list of words". Nothing about phrases. Except in MW itself of course.

        But MW has always been a crap dictionary sooo.

  66. the Jim bloke
    FAIL

    I read someplace recently

    teen pregnancy rates in USA have risen simultaneously with the shift in political emphasis towards "abstinence" as birth control.

    Sexual behaviour from children will be either hormone driven, or attention seeking - from the adults reaction, same as swearing.. or just possibly, if they are provided with actual facts as opposed to superstitions, they might deal with it without developing neurosesis (however the fck its spelt)

  67. MonkeyBot
    FAIL

    McGraw-Hill

    No kid is ever going to want to use the alternate dictionary now they know all the good words are in Merriam-Webster.

  68. jon 2

    I think...

    that the C, F and S sections of the dictionary should also be removed. There are naughty naughty words contained in these sections that our poor little children should not be exposed to.

    Yours, with the love of god

    Helen Lovejoy

    "Won't somebody *please* think of the children!?!"

  69. Malcolm Boura 2

    Health ed

    Now of course this couldn't have any connection with the USA having the highest rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and STIs in the Western World could it? It should be a criminal offence for an adult to harm children by foisting their personal prejudices on them.

  70. markp 1
    WTF?

    Where do we draw this particular line then?

    I mean, do we have to ban them from walking in the countryside because they may see animals mating? That's something else that's just a simple fact, and it's sat there for the occasional accidental discovery and actually-quite-minor "loss" of "innocence". Oh my god their poor little eyes! We must gouge them out so they never read or see such stuff again.

    And quickly gloss over the sticky business of how they came to be born onto this planet in the first place.

    We used to, as society at large, make fun of such prudish types. How come they're gaining power globally now?

  71. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dictionaries fall open ...

    ...on the pages with the rude words. And I have noticed that the rude word is often the title word of the page. Even brand new dictionaries do it.

  72. Tim_179

    To Bad

    It's too bad the parents, of the parents whom complained didn't practice Oral Sex! The gene pool could have been filtered.

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