Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
In one of the most appalling and ridiculous stories I've ever encountered, a school district in California has removed all the Merriam-Webster dictionaries from school classrooms because they actually defined sexual terms.
After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across "oral sex" in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster's 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the "sexually graphic" entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. The dictionaries were initially purchased a few years ago for fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms districtwide, according to a memo to the superintendent.
Now those busy little bureaucrats are pouring over the dictionaries looking for other "inappropriate" words to decide whether they'll pull the dictionaries permanently:
"It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," Cadmus said. She explained that other dictionary entries defining human anatomy would probably not be cause for alarm.
I've got news for you, lady -- the only thing in this whole situation that is cause for alarm is the remarkable spinelessness of the school administration and the fact that anyone there would find it acceptable to remove dictionaries from a classroom because they don't like some of the words in it. I suggest looking up the word "asinine."
PZ is right, when these kinds of situations crop up in schools, sane parents need to be in the face of the administration in a big way. The wingnuts are almost always the only ones making noise and that's why they so often seem to get their way. It's time for rational parents to make even more noise that they won't tolerate this kind of misology - especially from schools.
Politics
Comments
Double-plus ungood.
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 27, 2010 9:17 AM
I was gonna send this to you but then I realized it was so absurd that probably 100 other people would make sure you were aware of it. I laughed so hard at my desk when I read the story. I kept expecting to see it be from The Onion or the Colbert Report.
Posted by: JohnV | January 27, 2010 9:20 AM
I hope they never find out that the Thesaurus (like my Roget's from 1978) has three other words that also mean oral sex!
Posted by: Modusoperandi | January 27, 2010 9:20 AM
They better look at alternate dictionaries and make sure none of them have words like "murder" or "adultery" either. I hear that those two are so bad that some religions specifically forbid them. We sure don't want fifth-graders stumbling on those definitions.
Posted by: Coragyps | January 27, 2010 9:26 AM
Most of these kids probably already know what "oral sex" means, and the rest will discover it with or without a dictionary. Plenty of them will start doing it even if they don't know there's a term for it. Why do some people think that kids will never discover sex if nobody ever tells them it exists?
Posted by: catgirl | January 27, 2010 9:38 AM
I remember reading an article by somebody, I can't remember who, about how much they learned as a kid by browsing through the dictionary trying to find "bad" words.
Posted by: Taz | January 27, 2010 9:46 AM
When I was a kid, I thought looking up dirty words was the whole point of the dictionary. It was years before I realized you could use it for spelling non-filthy words.
Posted by: Sharon Astyk | January 27, 2010 9:53 AM
I'm trying to imagine what the district considers acceptable "sex education." The euphemisms and circumlocution [1] must be choreographed by a contortionist.
[1] Oh, dear. I wonder if "circumlocution" is up for censorship due to the second syllable? I actually ran into a web page today which disemvoweled the English construction "X-cum-Y."
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | January 27, 2010 10:14 AM
Now, as an adult, I find it far more humorous to look for words or references that are conspicuously missing. Every so often, I click on down to Conservapædia to see if they've put up an entry for "vagina" yet. They currently have it redirect to their entry on "Human Reproduction" which begins with a section on "Spiritual Aspects" and follows with a section on "Biological Aspects" that's all of 10 lines long, and manages not to mention anything about a penis or vagina.
Posted by: DaveL | January 27, 2010 10:20 AM
While they're at it, they should probably remove entries like "wood", "bone", "beaver", "haggard", "hike", and "Appalachian Trail".
Perhaps after Andy Schlafly finishes rewriting the Bible, he can have a crack at the dictionary.
Posted by: Jay | January 27, 2010 10:27 AM
One word: 'Teabagger'. I rest my case. :) - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | January 27, 2010 10:31 AM
I remember reading an article by somebody, I can't remember who, about how much they learned as a kid by browsing through the dictionary trying to find "bad" words.
Hell, I remember myself and several friends digging through our biology textbook for pictures of boobs. The sad part is that was pretty much the extent of our official sex education (that, and "sex is dirty and you'll go to hell"), since I went to a private and very conservative Christian school. It's pretty creepy to see public schools getting worse than what I had.
Posted by: schism | January 27, 2010 10:40 AM
It looks like they have put the dictionary back on the shelf but allowing students to use an alternative dictionary. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/01/27/state/n061921S98.DTL&tsp=1
Posted by: tony | January 27, 2010 11:14 AM
In one of the articles I read, a guy from the First Amendment Coalition said (roughly) "If my kid spends an afternoon going through the dictionary looking up words that will make him and his friends giggle, and in the meantime they stumble on a lot of other words, that seems like an afternoon well spent."
The idiocy on display here is too much.
Posted by: James Sweet | January 27, 2010 11:18 AM
The problem has existed as long as dictionaries have. When a woman stopped Samuel Johnson on the street to complain that his dictionary contained improper words, he replied: "You have been looking for them, madam."
Posted by: CJColucci | January 27, 2010 11:22 AM
Man, hope they never crack open a bible....you should see what they mention in there!
Think anyone would complain if we ban bibles from schools...?
Posted by: Uncle Bob | January 27, 2010 11:29 AM
If the kid was looking up the term (or "stumbling across it," as the source questionably states), then he/she in all likelihood already knew the definition or had some idea of it. Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity for the parent to give the child the "sex talk?" You know, instead of burying her shrieking head in the sand?
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 27, 2010 11:34 AM
Re: Uncle Bob @16
Ha! Firefly time...
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 27, 2010 11:38 AM
This is satirical, right? Or April Fools a few months early?
FFS, are there broads swathes of people who had an operation at birth to remove any sense of irony, and self-awareness of their words and actions?
Posted by: Sivi | January 27, 2010 11:44 AM
Sounds like school libraries today are sadly lacking in the information children really want to know.
The library at my tiny elementary school in a very Southern semi-rural area was most informative. As I had never been to a theater or a concert or a museum or any other library, it played an important part in my life.
In addition to original abstract art, which the Principal provided and then encouraged us to discuss, and a small printing press that the children used to print our own newspaper containing our own stories and photographs, there were wonderful books on science, especially astronomy.
One of my favorite readings was an old volume on Haitian voodoo explaining in detail how to make curses work (for example, a little ground hair from a horse's tail sprinkled in food if you want the person to develop stomach pains and bleedings, ground glass if you want to kill him). The dictionary was another favorite of mine, once I stumbled across "pregnant."
My mother lived to be 91, but the only conversation we ever had about sex occurred when I was nine. I was sitting on the porch swing reading when the screen door popped open to reveal my mother standing there in her apron drying her hands on a dish towel. "Julia!" she said. "Do you know where babies come from?" "Yes," I replied. "I read about it in a book in our library." "Thank God!" she said; then she whirled around and went back in the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.
Yes, I'm much in favor of informative elementary school libraries.
Posted by: JuliaL | January 27, 2010 12:20 PM
So they'll have two dictionaries, one that's been publicized as having "inappropriate" words and the other for use by people offended by such words - hmm I wonder which will be more popular.
Posted by: mcmillan | January 27, 2010 12:25 PM
My "The Talk" with my dad was not too far from JuliaL's -- it was roughly, "Do you know how this stuff works?" "Yes, the World Book entry on 'Reproduction' is very informative." "All right then."
Posted by: Squiddhartha | January 27, 2010 12:47 PM
In the fifth grade we found "sex" in the class encyclopedia. It had been annotated by previous generations. Not quite as good as the natives in a National Geographic photo essay on Polynesia, but better than nothing.
As a parent I boggle at the stupidity of some of my peers as they raise another generation of social and political retards: trained to question reality, embrace fantasy and obey their elder authorities without question.
Posted by: Ian | January 27, 2010 12:50 PM
The fantastically funny play Tuna Texas suggests this happens because this sounds just like the character of Vera Carp who chairs the Smut Snatchers of the New Order down at the Coweta Baptist Church screening the school's dictionary for objectionable words. Should ball be tossed if it gets used as a verb?
Posted by: DrA | January 27, 2010 1:03 PM
How in the world can you ever approve of a school or library, when your approach to child-rearing rests so heavily on maintaining ignorance?
Posted by: Scott Hanley | January 27, 2010 2:46 PM
Re Julia's story; # 20
My parents sat me down one day when I was about 10, and grilled me; did I know what "fuck" meant? What about ...? They were relieved to see how innocent I was, how "clean" my vocabulary was. I was relieved, too; they never caught on. I was a brazen little liar.
When the time came for Mom to give me the "talk", she put on her professional nurse voice, and gave me the barest of explanations of the periods I soon would be having, and their function. That was it.
As for Dad, one day around that same time, I asked, after our daily Bible reading, "What is a foreskin?" (It was relevant to the story, David and the 400 foreskins.) Dad said it was skin off the forehead. I knew it was a lie because he turned the most interesting shade of pink, right up to his ears.
A few years later, I explained to my kid brother the basics of female biology. I didn't think my parents were quite up to it.
Posted by: Susannah | January 27, 2010 5:41 PM
I read Ann Landers every day as a kid up to the day she retired (an advice column). One day I came across a word that sounded like it described an important person - like a president. However the context didn't square with the word, so I asked my mom, "Mom, what's a prostitute?"
The local paper got a stern letter to the editor.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 27, 2010 6:26 PM
When the thumpers start removing the Song of Solomon from their magic books I'll start taking them seriously.
Posted by: Rob Jase | January 27, 2010 7:21 PM
I wish I'd had an older sister like you. It might have saved me some trauma. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but it was still single digits. I was playing doctor with the girl next door. (Literally playing doctor, I had a Fisher Price doctor's kit and everything.) I went to give her a shot and she started to roll up her sleeve. "Not there, " I said, "on the peepee."
She laughed, "I don't have one of those."
"Ya huh," I retorted. After all, that's how you pee and everyone pees. So I was pretty confident she was just messing with me.
"Nuh uh, check for yourself," she said and unbuttoned her pants. I reached down and sure enough, no peepee. Something was definitely wrong here. Then I remembered she'd had her tonsils removed a while back. I put two and two together and realized tonsils must be the technical term for peepee.
Wouldn't you know it, about a year later I was diagnosed with tonsillitis and told I might have to have mine removed. My mom couldn't understand why I was so upset, screaming and bawling my eyes out like that. Eventually we got it all sorted out. But explaining first what had me so upset, and then how I'd gotten to that belief, was not pleasant. Mortified hardly begins to cover it.
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 27, 2010 10:24 PM
Abby Normal,
Ouch. Traumatic. Now, if you had just had a really good elementary school library . . . . Or, come to think of it, maybe just a mother who let you shower with her when you were two . . .
Posted by: JuliaL | January 27, 2010 10:39 PM
Re: 'The Talk'
My dad was up to his elbows in the washing-up when my brother, then aged about 7ish, asked "Dad, what's fucking?"
Dad sighed, disengaged from the sink, dried his hands, and sat down to have a serious talk with my brother.
After the long, careful explanation my brother interrupted: "Yes, yes I know all that, but what's fucking?" :) - Dingo
Posted by: DingoJack | January 27, 2010 10:55 PM
Hmmm... Do these kids have access to the Web, I wonder?
Posted by: Chris Winter | January 27, 2010 11:53 PM
"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased." - C. Dickens
Posted by: Lauram | January 28, 2010 1:00 AM
Wait a second if they find a dictionary that does not define these English words I am quite sure some of those kids would so what I do if a word I looked up is not in the dictionary: Google. I would like to know how that is an improvement for their own point-of-view?
Posted by: a lurker | January 28, 2010 1:43 AM
Upper management at Merriam-Webster should all be fired for not seeing this opportunity sooner. Now schools will be forced to purchase twice as many dictionaries (regular and lite), but M-W will miss out on some of these sales due to this bad publicity. That company needs someone with vision.
Posted by: mingfrommongo | January 28, 2010 11:31 AM
Yeah, this happened a short hop up the I-15 from me and no, I'm not surprised. This area is the very first notch over from the California babble-belt (the OC.)
We got a great deal on our house, though. /headdesk
Posted by: twincats | January 28, 2010 6:22 PM