[Lexicog] offensive words in dictionaries

[William J Poser]

The issue of offensive words has come up with Carrier
dictionaries. In addition to the unmentionable body
parts and excretions, which in this case didn't arouse
much concern, I have a perhaps surprisingly detailed
collection of terminology for sex acts, courtesy of
a couple of male speakers who like to talk dirty.
They are flagged in the database, so they can
easily be omitted when printing if so desired.
I first raised this issue with a younger person
who had an administrative job related to language
work. Her view was that they should be published
somehow but that since the dictionary might be used
in schools, the dirty words should be printed separately.
So one edition of the dictionary had an expurgated
main volume with a separate dirty word supplement.

Subsequently, I discussed this issue with a number
of the elders and found that they favored including
everything in the main dictionary. I think that in
part they aren't as prissy as younger people, or as
worried about being perceived as immoral, and in
part they recognize that this is part of the language
(after all, you need these words in order, among
other things, to tell people not to do them)
and that it shouldn't be omitted. They have a better
sense of the language as a "real" language used for
all purposes than do the younger people, for whom
the language is used only in limited ways
or for whom it is a purely symbolic thing.

It is also worth noting that cultures differ in
what is umentionable.  One female elder with
a reputation for being uncomfortable with talk about
sex proved quite happy to talk about menstruation.
Inclusion of words having to do with menstruation
in the dictionary doesn't raise any eyebrows.

Bill

--
Bill Poser, Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wjposer/ billposer at alum.mit.edu


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