Merriam Webster Dictionary Pulled From Elementary School For Defining Oral Sex; Guess What All The Students Just Found Out About?

News You Could Do Without

from the yeah-good-work,-parents dept

Pickle Monger points us to yet another story of overreaction that will clearly backfire in a misguided attempt to “protect the children!” Apparently a parent of a student at Oak Meadows Elementary school in Riverside, California got very upset when she discovered that the schools had copies of the collegiate level Merriam-Websters Dictionary which (gasp!) contained a definition of the phrase “oral sex.” Because of that the dictionary was removed from classrooms and a committee was formed to “investigate.” Thankfully, the committee concluded that the original dictionary was fine and should be returned to the classroom, but that an alternative dictionary will be provided as well.

Of course, many other parents at the school pointed out how ridiculous it was that the dictionaries were removed in the first place. It’s not as if kids will never hear a phrase like that and seek out an answer somewhere. Would parents really prefer that the kids go to Google and do a search on “oral sex,” or go to a dictionary instead? Furthermore, this is a definite “Streisand Effect” situation. Now that this story has made the press, you have to imagine that a significantly higher number of elementary school students at Oak Meadows have now heard the term “oral sex” and figured out what it meant.

Filed Under: dictionaries, oral sex, streisand effect