HOWTO: Expurgate your Dictionary

"" If I could not oppose a vegetarian keeping their child meat-free, if I could not oppose a Christian making their children attend church, then how can I oppose a moralistic parent from preventing their children reading about "rude" words in the dictionary? ""

..except, maybe we can.

I absolutely don't think it's right that children of parents-of-a-certain-faith are religeously (pardon the awful pun) brought up as followers of that same faith. Children should be given the choice to observe and participate when they understand it and choose it.

Similarly with the widespread fear-mongering associated with certain types of food/diet. Children should have a balanced, healthy diet until they are 1) grown past the possibility of adverse growth effects and 2) old enough to choose for themselves.. even to the point of vegan parents making non-vegan food for their kids if necessary.

And the reason kids shouldn't watch southpark is because its not made for kids. Its an adult show.

I think the most important point made in this discussion has been: If someone is looking up a certain word, they already have some awareness of it and may already use it. looking it up will only add knowledge to its prior ignorant use.

I'd rather have a kid using a word correctly in its right place then throw it about willy-nilly because they think it means something else and possibly less offensive (to those offended by words).

You can't really edit this Dictionary. Apple has made the app search a binary index file that is generated via an undocumented API. No one seems to have been able to reverse engineer it to figure out how it was done.
Why can't Apple release this information/software so we can add our own dictionaries, say in other languages?

Adrian, if one is to take an anti-censorship stance, then wouldn't that logically also include a stance opposing the censorship of "how to censor" guides?

You said, "don't post this, nobody should be doing it - nobody should even be facilitating it" but that indicates you want some information suppressed as much as the dictionary-cleaners.

There is also an issue here of parental choice - I do not like many of the notions and beliefs that parents instil in their children, but I do not necessarily have the right to demand they teach their kids something else.

If I could not oppose a vegetarian keeping their child meat-free, if I could not oppose a Christian making their children attend church, then how can I oppose a moralistic parent from preventing their children reading about "rude" words in the dictionary?

I agree, I hasten to add, that I think it is healthy and preferable for children to learn these definitions from a dictionary rather than the schoolyard, but that is just my personal belief, and parents are entitled to have different beliefs.

Would anyone object if a parent said, "I don't let my child watch South Park because of the swearing" ? I think that's a fair call for a parent to make, and since it is their call as to whether their children hear profanity on television, it has to also be their call as to whether their children see profanity in the dictionary.

Remember, too, that this is Apple's feature, and Apple provided information on how to implement it. Erica did not expose anything, she was merely pointing out that this info is available. She did nothing that was unethical.

I hope that you appreciate that Mike's comment, while it did perhaps unfairly generalise the responses to this post, came after a long period of sustained, unprovoked and malicious attacks on Erica, and was more an expression of outrage and frustration, than it was an attack on the individual comment-makers of this post.

What a sad world we must live in when someone would want to censor a dictionary. Let 'em learn what those words mean as soon as they're interested.

Mike, you are wrong to lump together all the objections to this post as irrational Erica-bashing.

I too have been surprised at the peculiar harshness of some responses to her other posts, but I am also the poster of #21 above and I can assure you my words were certainly "carefully considered".

There is quite obviously a real issue here that people have responded to and that you have ignored. The majority of these comments would have been the same regardless of the post's author. It is lazy and irresponsible to dismiss them all because of a few idiots (common though this tactic seems to be these days).

An author's decision to post implies that they see some value in the chosen topic; after all, it has been selected from an almost endless slew of possibilities. This is acknowledged by Mat Lu in his recent TV torrent post when he says "This falls into the category of we report, you decide (what to do with it)".

But there is a line past which the negative aspects of a topic outweigh any claim of journalistic objectivity. You wouldn't post "Here's a great site that sells Rohypnol, what you do with it is up to you". Erica's post, though not in the same league, still crosses that line - at least for some commenters. We're not saying "don't post this, I don't want to do it"; we're saying "don't post this, nobody should be doing it - nobody should even be facilitating it".

Please do not trivialise the views of your readership. And if you have comments to contribute about the actual issue, please do so.

Mike, I am so glad to see someone from TUAW finally take a stand against the harassment that Erica has been subjected to.

Many of the comments on her articles have been outrageously vitriolic, insulting or abusive, as well as just plain wrong, and I have come to the belief that there is an organised campaign against Erica, because the claims made in many of these comments are absolutely beyond belief.

They're not genuine misunderstandings, they are not honest mistakes. It is impossible to see them as anything other than a part of a deliberate campaign. A few people obviously think that if they post enough of these false accusations under enough different names, then TUAW will "fire" Erica.

I doubt they will, and that's because if they did, myself and many others would leave, being unwilling to read a blog where the bloggers aren't protected from harassment, and where the effectively anonymous can shout untenable accusations to remove bloggers that they don't like.

And Erica's at it again! Writing shitty posts about censorship from information! Woohoo! God damn, I thought my email to your editor would actually DO something. Ah.

This is the lamest "hack" I've ever seen. You should be ashamed of yourselves for even posting it.

mike, you and many others all tell the "haters" to go read something else, but i, and many others find tuaw a great blog with fantastic writers. its just erica's post, whether about free music on itunes or doing everything but cooking with your apple tv, are odd, out of place, poorly written and/or researched. It's frustrating since i have been reading this website for a good 3 years, and to see a new person come and repeatedly post funky articles is saddening and lowers my experience and respect for tuaw.

#30, thanks. I know that Erica intended for the humorous side of this post to be clear, glad you could see it.

#21-26: Speaking of words that should be more carefully considered...

I am continually, painfully surprised at the level of venom associated with comments to Erica's posts. I don't know how she maintains a thick enough skin to tolerate the nasty, snotty, immature and ill-spirited carping that seems to bubble up from the muck each time. "Lowest of the low." "Block all posts from this author." "Worst post ever." This isn't constructive commentary, it's hostile and cruel.

If you are so deeply, furiously dissatisfied with TUAW and its writers, either skip the posts you dislike, or go read something else. You all sound like the children you want to protect from the dangerous censorship of the lexicological police state. If we tied you to your chair and forced to subscribe, and read each post before you were allowed to go outside and play, I might understand your bile. As it is, you just sound mean.

None of us at TUAW is above error or misjudgment, and we appreciate it when you constructively correct us. We do not appreciate, however, the rhetorical equivalent of standing outside our workplace holding a megaphone and shouting "Fire those idiots."

Rant over.