Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Open Letter to lexicographers everywhere

Dear lexicographers, especially lexicographers of multilingual dictionaries:

You need to include profanity in your dictionaries. Why? Because if you don't, people looking up those words who honestly don't know what they mean aren't going to learn that they're profanity. If you don't know a language's profanity, it's very difficult to tell by googling whether it's profanity or just slang.

Helping non-native speakers catch these nuances before they make an ass of themselves is far more important than denying 12-year-olds an opportunity to giggle.

And please, whatever you do, don't put the literal meaning of the word but fail to mention that it also has a profane meaning! Unless, like, you want people walking around the dog park going "Hi you little bitch!"

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