OK, maybe not. But it is, at least, sort of sad when respected institutions are splattered with the mud of the immature dirty mind. This week, the Canadian National History Society announced that they'd be changing the name of their 90-year-old magazine, The Beaver, because profanity and spam filters were making it difficult for teachers and students to access their online material.
Now, it's been a couple of decades since I was any kind of kid, but I've never in my life heard a contemporary use "beaver" in its, um, vulgar slang sense. Maybe things are different in Canada, maybe web filters are all set up by 80-year-olds, or maybe the kids these days are really getting into retro naughty slang. In any case, the magazine will henceforth be known as Canada's History. But what will become of young Theodore Cleaver?
Tripping up an outfit like the Canadian National History Society is one thing - but mighty Merriam-Webster, publishers of the standard dictionaries found in just about every school? Yes, they've run afoul of some parents in Riverside County, California, for including the phrase "oral sex". Seems to me I'd rather have my kids learn about such things from a dull grey eminence like Merriam-Webster than from an equally confused classmate (or, God forbid, the Internet). The dictionary's definition of the act - "oral stimulation of the genitals" - makes it sound about as arousing as a tonsillectomy.
Am I the weirdo here, or do these both seem like cases of overreaction to you, too? I feel sorry for any kid who has to research rapeseed or pussywillows. And I'll tell you one thing: nobody, but nobody better mess with Albert Pujols.
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