What do Shel Silverstein, Judy Blume, and now Merriam-Webster have in common? All are authors in disrepute due to the “offensive language” or “inappropriate story-lines” in their works. In other words, all of them are writers whose works have been banned.

Just today, the AP wire reported that the Merriam-Webster dictionary has been taken out of classrooms in a kindergarten-8th grade school district in southern California because one rather investigative student discovered the words, “oral sex” within the dictionary. Apparently, “oral sex” is not the only offensive word in the dictionary, as the Assistant Superintendent has claimed that many of the words within are “age inappropriate”.


According to this blog post, the school officials are going to “comb through” the dictionaries to look for more inappropriate language. I particularly like the blogger’s recommendation for readers to look their own dictionaries so that they can warn the officials about other offensive words that might disturb young minds.

Almost half of high school students have had sex. With pornography on the Internet readily available and more sex and violence on tv, should we really be focusing our energy on banning or trying to censor a dictionary?