Ah, I'm taken back to the days when the kids would gather 'round that gigantic library dictionary and look up dirty words. I actually find it cute that what the kid was looking up was "oral sex." If that's the worst the kid's looking up, count yourself lucky. And I can guarantee that's not the most sexually explicit thing those kids have looked up. In my mind, a kid looking up the definition for "oral sex" heard it somewhere, didn't know what it meant, and was curious and studious enough to go to Mssrs. Merriam and Webster instead of the Google. That's a kid that wants straight facts, not titillation.

Seriously, this is insane. Banning the fucking dictionary from the classroom? Way to punish a kid for being intelligent and proactive enough to want to know the answer to something he'd heard around. And way to guarantee that he won't come to you with real questions about sex. And with your attitudes, you won't want sex ed in the school, either. God save those kids.

By the way, parents of Menifee Union School District, that variation of a four-letter word I used earlier? Also in the dictionary.

I have to wonder if this is one of those parents that makes a habit out "safety-netting" their children. Ban the dictionary for having a definition? Better make sure to ban all the books with anything controversial in them.
Huckleberry Finn comes to mind (there was an outrage in my high school, not that the BOOK contained offensive language, but that a teacher dared to quote from the book, without omitting said offensive language.)

And I agree completely with Amy, if a kid is smart enough to be looking things up in the dictionary, even "dirty words," they'll be smart enough to use the dictionary when it counts, like for writing papers in high school and college.

This is an issue where the people issuing the edict are not realizing that parenting and mentoring are in the dictionary between education and unenlightenment.

Sometimes it is hard to believe that it really is 2011. People do not seem to be getting smarter. This is not a good thing. Why don't these people want their children to actually be educated, and show intelligence?

I should dig out my 4th grade dictionary where I listed dirty words and their page number inside the cover and send it to them. Sadly NumberSix, I *was* doing it for titillation. It doesn't seem to have done any serious harm. Sniggering about "dick" being in the dictionary is...well...pretty tame.

No internet when I was growing up. We had to get by on discarded Playboys and pages torn from older brother's porn magazines and passed around school. Kids these days don't know how good they've got it :)

Because if you check out Merriam-Webster's definition of "oral sex"...It's succinct.

Hehe. Succinct.

Looks like they both reshelved the original dictionaries and found others that didn't include the definition of oral sex. http://www.pe.com/columns/danbernstein/stories/PE_News_Local_D_dan31.11189b4.html

When I was growing up we used to stealthily look up the deifinition of "fart". It was defined as "a minor explosion between the legs."

If you go to google, the auto-finish picks it up at "a minor exp"!

Sometimes it is hard to believe that it really is 2011. People do not seem to be getting smarter. This is not a good thing. Why don't these people want their children to actually be educated, and show intelligence?

There is a fixed quantity of intelligence in the universe and the population is growing.

"Sometimes it is hard to believe that it really is 2011. People do not seem to be getting smarter."

Check out "Idiocracy" on Netflix sometime. You can find it under "Comedies", although I believe "Documentaries" would be more appropriate.

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

You just might be in Menifee, since their fifth graders don't have dictionaries.

Ridiculous. Absurd. Pathetic. Any number of other descriptive words that these kids can probably no longer look up in thesaurus's either.

As a parent-the kid OBVIOUSLY is hearing the expression somewhere, how about an honest chat with them? NO, that would be parenting! By an individual, not the government. Can't have that!

You'd be surprised by what dictionaries sometimes DON'T have.

I was hardly surprised that my heavy 1950s edition of Webster's Dictionary doesn't include any slang definitions of "gay." (The closest they get to that in the list of definitions was "rakish; libertine.") What WAS surprising was finding that my late-1980s edition of Funk and Wagnalls says nothing more controversial than that either!

I was thinking "Idiocracy"...and Not Sure beat me to it. Not a week goes by that I don't see an example where I think about the movie.

Check out "Idiocracy" on Netflix sometime. You can find it under "Comedies", although I believe "Documentaries" would be more appropriate.

Posted by: Not Sure

OMG President Sure, wait does that mean you found a real time machine?

"Oral sex" is in the dictionary but not "gullible!"
Outrageous!

In 5th grade, we found the term Dick Test in the dictionary. I forget what it means, but we sure got a hearty laugh out of it.

"OMG President Sure, wait does that mean you found a real time machine?"

Yes, I did. And not the Time Masheen, either. The only downside so far is that I can't find any Brawndo anywhere. It's got electrolytes, you know...

It is what plants crave

Sadly NumberSix, I *was* doing it for titillation.

So were we. Not saying it's bad if you look up dirty words to get a good snicker, just that it doesn't sound like that's what this kid was doing. We also did our sneaky research in the library in front of God and the Apple II. Like you say, it's part of growing up to think seeing the clinical definition for "penis" is funny. I actually think it's cute that the kid went for the paper dictionary rather than the internet. He wanted to know what something meant and realized his classroom had a book that would help him. Adorable.

I want to tell the parents at that school that fifth grade was when we had to read What's Happening to My Body?, which, in addition to all the puberty stuff, had a full-on drawing of the missionary position with genitalia exposed so we could see where everything was supposed to go. Who wants to take bets on whether these parents will freak out over sex ed later on?

Good grief.

Without the dictionary in grade school, I would've never found out the true definitions of 'fag' and 'faggot'.

My school was a bit more sedate NumberSix, we didn't read What's Happening To My Body until well after most of it had finished happening. Which explains some of my curiousity perhaps. And as you say, not that there was anything wrong with that.

Amy, my mother allowed me free access to her bookshelves. Being an avid reader I worked my way through most of it. I think the highlights when I was 13 were Catch-22 and Everywoman. Both were extremely interesting, albeit in different ways. I still say Catch-22 is the greatest novel ever written.

Who uses dictionaries these days when there are websites like m-w.com? The site also has a pronouncing feature that in some cases offers both Northern and Southern pronunciations. Try creek or S.O.B. it’s a hoot.

I'll second Roger... first thing I thought was: "wait, books? they look stuff up in books?"