I do love this part. Has she ever used a dictionary before? It is a terribly useful book, but it does not contain that many surprises. You think of a word you know, then, it should be in a dictionary. Defined and everything. She is going to read the whole thing looking for offensive words? Well, to paraphrase Yoda: “If into the dictionary you go, only pain will you find.” Maybe when she gets to words like “censorship”, “overreacting”, “prude” and “stupid”, she will see the error of her ways.
Betti Cadmus: Do you have a copy Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary?
School Librarian: Yes, well, we do have that, as a matter of fact…
BC: The expurgated version…
SL: (pause; politely) I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that…?
BC: The expurgated version.
SL: (exploding) The EXPURGATED version of Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary ?!?!?!?!?
BC: (desperately) The one without the offensive words!
SL: The one without the offensive words-!!! They’ve ALL got the offensive words!! It’s a dictionary, it’s got all the words!!!
BC: (insistent) Well, I don’t like them, especially “oral sex”…it makes me feel funny.
SL: (furious) All right! I’ll remove it!! (rrrip!) Any other words you don’t like?!
BC: I don’t like “labia”…
SL: (screaming) “Labia”! Right! “Labia”! (rrrip!) There you are, any others you don’t like, any others?
BC: “Nipple”?
SL: Right! (flipping through the book) Nipple, nipple, nipple, 'ere we are! (rrriiip!) There you are! NO “oral sex”, NO “labia”, NO “nipples”, THERE’s your book!
BC: (indignant) I can’t use that in a school! It’s torn!
This is perhaps the best banning of all time. It’s meta-banning. It’s like a satirist sat down and spent considerable effort coming up with the thing that would put this issue over the top. In a way, banning the dictionary is like trying to ban the English language (which does, I understand, have some of those words in it).
There once was a book set in a society where the English language had been banned. They used Newspeak, which was English (“Oldspeak”) with all the bad – sorry, ungood – words taken out. I think some South Californians might like the concept.
Is this a parody of a MPFC sketch? (I feel embarassed to ask, because I consider myself a huge MPFC fan, having seen all their stuff umpteen times). If it isn’t, it’s sure in their style. (John Cleese is the librarian, of course.)
It’s not really a ban in my eyes. They put a collegiate book in an elementary school and are now removing it. Of course it will have age inappropriate material. The dumbass who ordered the book should have realized that.
The definition states: oral stimulation of the genitals (or some such equivalent).
But it wasn’t a “collegiate” book, it was a dictionary compiled and published by a reputable publisher of dictionaries. It’s no different from the dictionary available at any bookstore or library, except that someone got a bug up their ass about one definition.
In HS, I had to choose a ‘pathway.’ I chose the Manufacturing, Engineering and Technology(MET) pathway. I was usually in the honors English classes, but my Junior year I was put in the MET English class. There were about not that many in the class, mostly boys, mostly the kind that took a lot of shop class. One day, the teacher didn’t have a lesson plan and let us talk amongst ourselves the whole period. I taught the boys the words “cunnilingus” and “fellatio.” My teacher overheard us, and asked “What are you doing, Ataraxy?” “Teaching vocabulary, Ms. Anderson. This is English class.” She just rolled her eyes and laughed.
It was a college level dictionary removed from an elementary school. I don’t see how the school would think it was a good idea to buy it in the first place.
I don’t understand this at all. We had full dictionaries and (gasp!) encyclopedias in elementary school, and were always encouraged to read independently and to “Look it up!” if we came across an unfamiliar word.
To deliberately withhold reference materials from kids at that age seems a little backwards. Hobbling, even.
It’s not like an hour spent hunting for rude words in the dictionary is going to corrupt a child. As I recall, that’s how I first learned what butyric acid was.
“Collegiate” dictionaries are shorter, cheaper, more portable versions of their unabridged cousins. The term doesn’t imply any sort of age requirement or maturity rating - quite the opposite. The existence of “elementary school” editions for the easily-envapored is appalling to me.
I don’t believe it is every inappropriate to teach facts to children. I can be persuaded that sexual content, in some contexts, can be inappropriate - my outrage-meter really wouldn’t even twitch if an elementary school library decided not to purchase Harlequin romance novels, for example. But purely factual definitions of words?
Schools exist to teach children things. Any elementary school worth its salt will make a point of teaching children how to teach themselves things - mine spent time every year teaching us how to use the library, including dictionaries. The best way to accomplish this goal is to give children the best reference tools available at budget - including the least-abridged dictionaries affordable.