Apple sort of censors the dictionary

Noted without (much) comment: “Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day.” Please feel free to cleanse your palate of the bad taste in your mouth by reading this old article form The Atlantic Monthly which includes my favorite dictionary joke (ah yes we librarians have dictionary jokes…) punchline: ‘So you have been looking for them, Madam?’

2 thoughts on “Apple sort of censors the dictionary

  1. Censoring dictionaries? It’s hard to write those two words together without repeating some of those words that are being censored. For me, this comes from the same mindset that thinks that abstinence education is the best way to solve the so-called problem of sex/pregnancy/STDs among teenagers — just say no (I guess it applies to the drug problem, too).

    The other thing, slightly more seriously, is that the impetus to censor dictionaries (or frankly to censor anything) comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of how reading/viewing/etc. work/s — just because I look up a bad word in the dictionary, doesn’t mean that I support the activities it denotes, or that I am going to run screaming down the street trying to find an outlet where I could do them myself. No — it’s about education. Where did the word come from? What are its various meanings? How is is pronounced? And so on. Removing “fuck” from the dictionary won’t stop anyone from using the word, but it will dig it and the censors and the victims of the censors into a bigger hole of ignorance than they/we currently slosh around in.

  2. heeey. i’ve bought two $4.99 iphone/pod touch apps from apple’s app store. guess i won’t be giving them my $ anymore. i cannot possibly see my way clear to subsidizing robotic stupidity of that magnitude.

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