California school district bans dictionaries for dirty words

Chris Spags Founder and Editor

I don’t think anyone’s disputing that American schools are really lagging behind other countries in terms of churning out intelligent, well-read youngsters. But America is making strides in fixing this. For example, look no further than this California school district looking to ban the dictionary from its classrooms due to them having the term “oral sex” inside.

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.

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district.

“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.

Fortunately, not everyone in the town is an idiot. A board member said to the Press Enterprise:

“If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled,” she said. “The standard needs to be consistent … We don’t need parents setting policy.”

I’d have to agree with that assessment. Books might have some scandalous material, but odds are that your child didn’t stumble upon it accidentally. In fact, the kid was probably deliberately looking up “oral sex” and giggling with his or her pals at it being in the dictionary. Kids that age often already know the score, they just have to pretend they don’t to their parents so they don’t have to get a two-hour talk with lots of stammering and convoluted analogies about birds sucking on a bee’s stinger.

Anyway, in short, how it should be: Dictionary with “oral sex” defined in it – allowed. Sitting a child on your lap and reading the definition of “oral sex” to them while you lick your lips and make sounds like “mmmmrmmmmm” – Not allowed.

[Press Enterprise]

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