Menifee school officials remove dictionary over term 'oral sex'

The Press-Enterprise of Riverside and San Bernardino counties in southern California is reporting that copies of Webster's 10th edition have been removed from Menifee school libraries following a parent's complaint about the inclusion of the term "oral sex." The dictionaries originally were purchased for fourth and fifth grade classrooms.

District spokeswoman Betty Cadmus said that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district. The dictionaries will be reviewed: "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.

Meanwhile, the newspaper reports, some parents are questioning the district's response and some school board members are asking why officials did not consult with them. "Censorship in the schools, really? Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school library will be the Bert and Ernie dictionary," said Emanuel Chavez, the parent of second- and sixth-grade students. "If the kids are exposed to it, it's up to the parents to explain it to them at their level."

For the complete story, visit http://tinyurl.com/y97cs8t.

ASL Children's Dictionary

A recently announced business partnership between the Canadian Cultural Society of the Deaf and regional content producer, marblemedia will produce an online, interactive American Sign Language (ASL) dictionary for deaf children. For more information, visit http://www.animationinsider.net/article.php?articleID=2041.

Criteria for Children's Dictionaries

We've received a copy of an article from the March 2009 issue of Books for Keeps that follows up on the recent controversy over the omission of religious terms from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Here it is in pdf format: Books%20for%20Keeps%20article.pdf

Words associated with Christianity and British history taken out of children's dictionary

The London Telegraph reports:

Oxford University Press has removed words like "aisle", "bishop", "chapel", "empire" and "monarch" from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like "blog", "broadband" and "celebrity". Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled.

For the rest of the article, visit http://tinyurl.com/5hb66a.

LB