[sw-l] Guidelines for Dictionary Editors ;-)

[Bill Reese]

There is also a move in any language towards a commonly accepted use of
former swear words as well as a corruption of formerly acceptable
words.  For instance, during the 1800's in America, an "idiot" was
someone with the IQ of a small child, an "imbecile" had a bit more
intelligence and a "moron" had the intelligence of a preteen.   It was
acceptable to use those terms in categorizing intelligence level.
Today, they have been relegated to the swear word category.   "Mentally
challenged" is quickly going that way today.
As my children have grown, I've heard (relatively speaking) them use
words that I would never even think of using around adults when I was a
child.  Calling someone "phat" apparently isn't a bad thing and to say
something is "shit", given the proper context, is to say that it's
good.  Also, in America, giving someone the finger, while retaining it's
bad connotation, is almost a rite of passage among young males - who
will exchange that sign between them without prejudice.
Of course, that brings us around to the idea that there are signs in
foreign languages that have bad connotations here and vice versa.  Are
we to shield young eyes from learning Japanese sign language because
their sign for older brother is offensive to some?

Bill


Dan Parvaz wrote:

>In my experience, people who want to learn the rude signs just for grins
>("Look, I can sign 'shit.' Aren't I clever?") learn quickly that if that's
>all they can do, the result is a quick trip to Coventry :-) In many ways
>it's a self-adjusting system. So when lots of hearing people learned the
>ASL sign for "bullshit" by watching "Children of a Lesser God," society
>didn't crumble. Deaf people rolled their eyes, and everyone moved on.
>
>A comparable situation exists in spoken langauges. In French class you can
>only take so much of the "this is the pen of my aunt" stuff before you
>start wondering how to tell someone to, well, stuff it. So little
>schoolboys (and girls, but I can't speak from experience there) run to the
>unabridged dictionaries and learn a few naughty words. We did the same
>thing in Latin, since the English translators -- Victorians, all -- left
>all the naughty bits untranslated (so huge swaths of Catullus stayed in
>Latin :-). Reading Chaucer, we learned the origins of some of our shorter
>words for body parts.
>
>Big deal. Who are we protecting? Does the Deaf community actually need us
>to act as linguistic gatekeepers for them? How patronizing does *that*
>sound?
>
>And children? You can access many dictionaries online, including American
>Heritage and OED. Unexpurgated. I don't think learning the word for
>"fellatio" is going to scar kids for life. And if parents are using any
>kind of keyword-based net-nanny software, chances are those pages will be
>blocked, if that's what the parents want.
>
>Of course we include "useful" signs. I can guarantee that any lexical
>entry worth using will be included, and those outnumber the sailor talk by
>quite a bit. I think the process of naturally adding signs as we encounter
>them will keep the salty language to a very low proportion. But to
>bowlderize the dictionary? That goes against my principles.
>
>-Dan.
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