Is it a sin?

[Nathan]

[FONT="Arial"][quote name='ChibiHorsewoman][color=#9933ff']I try... but dammit all to Hell (which hasn't been removed from the dictionary yet) if those sins aren't so addictive. A lot of them get stuck in my head and I just think about them all day.[/color][/quote]Pick up a regular dictionary and you can have all the sins you want. =P

Anyway, it's a junior dictionary so other than to find a few of the choices odd, I don't see a problem at all. Still removing sin... I can't help but laugh a little at that one. I can just imagine a kid telling their parents they're wrong since sin isn't in the dictionary. [/FONT]

[TwistedChick]

Just yesterday, my mother sent me a series of text messages, the first remarking on the abridged dictionary she'd just looked at which didn't include "travesty" (which she said, of course, was one) and the last stating "all dictionaries that are not complete, comprehensive, should be burned." I agree. Any word that is still commonly used, in speech, literature, or otherwise, shouldn't be dropped from any dictionary, and so-called "Junior" dictionaries shouldn't exist at all. Pocket dictionaries are different, since those aren't educational tools but quick aids when you're on the go. Any dicitonary expressly aimed at youths, those still in their formative years when what they are exposed to will have the most impact on them, should be as comprehensive a representation of the English language as is possible. Terms that have an unsightly connotation should not be removed lest we forget the issues that they represent. It isn't a case of life and death, but it isn't a direction we want to be moving in either.

[Allamorph]

[FONT=Arial]I have stayed out of this until [COLOR="DarkRed"]Twisted[/COLOR]'s post because I feel that the whole situation is either a protest of religious anonymity or a deliberate trolling of a specific religious community, neither of which I care about.

But [COLOR="DarkRed"]Twisted[/COLOR] has a great point. The decision here reflects our views on education, not religion. It shows us that we think it's okay to limit our youths' education.

I've had this gripe ever since I've entered public school. Do you know why most kids hate English class or Math class? It's not because the material is hard, but because it's boring. And why is it boring?

My first day in 6th-grade math, we went over adding.

My first day in 6th-grade English, we went over nouns.

I was homeschooled for my elementary years. I already knew how to form most sentence structures, and could do it without thinking about what I was doing. I'd memorised my multiplication tables already, had done so for years.

Fortunately for me, I got into higher-level math courses, and was taking Calculus 2 in my senior year of high school.

My junior year of high-school english?

Nouns.

From what I've heard in other countries, there are kids 15-16 already in a college environment, who not only learn English but at least one other language, and both to the point of proficiency. And yet we feel we have to teach our kids about nouns for (assuming starting in second grade) [I]TEN YEARS??[/I]

I give kids enough credit to think that they'd be able to grasp the concept after one. Maybe two.

And so we get people my age in college general-curriculum classes asking if zero of something means there isn't any of that something.

Although that wouldn't have bothered me so badly if that exact same question hadn't been asked four times in the space of five minutes, as if they didn't hear the professor explain the first time. Or second. Or third.

[I]*facepalm*[/I][/FONT]

[Kinetix]

[quote name='TwistedChick'] "all dictionaries that are not complete, comprehensive, should be burned." I agree. Any word that is still commonly used, in speech, literature, or otherwise, shouldn't be dropped from any dictionary, and so-called "Junior" dictionaries shouldn't exist at all.[/QUOTE]

I could not agree more. If a Junior Dictionary is aimed at shaping the minds of our youth through the education of words that will expand their horizons in a modern world, we should of course embrace modern lingo, but not cease the teaching of words that have shaped history.

It makes no sense that they would distinguish the use of the word "acorn" (which I used today when I had an acorn fight with a friend) or "sin", which is obviously used countless times a day in this world, but they will encourage the use of absolutely meaningless words such as "bootylicious". Perhaps bootylicious, on some very basic level, has a meaning, but the use of it is more nostalgic and jestful that meaningful.

I couldn't imagine using "bootylicious" in an everyday conversation, with the exception of perhaps mocking it.