Random House and Bad Words
Following on the last post regarding the use of certain words, I was delighted to come across the following from the Random House website concerning their decision to publish “bad” words in the dictionary.
From their site:
Our first duty as dictionary publishers is to describe accurately what words in fact do exist in the language, however much we may regret their use.
And later they say:
Such words will not go away simply because they’re undefined in a dictionary; in fact, if people cannot get accurate information about them from a dictionary, including not only how offensive they are but also what they mean, they are more likely to have an excuse for treating these words as acceptable.
You go, Random House!
Read the whole thing here:
Sensitive Language in the Dictionary
Note: I try to let people know where I saw something first, but this time I completely forgot to make a note of it. If you posted something about this on your blog today, let me know and I will be happy to give you credit for it.