Monday 23 December, 2024

Oxford Dictionaries was forced to apologise for this 'sexist' dictionary definition

The dictionary’s definition of the word ‘rabid’ has courted controversy.

OXFORD DICTIONARIES HAS found itself embroiled in an online controversy after an anthropologist called them out over their definition of the word “rabid”.

Specifically, their decision to include the term “rabid feminist” as a usage example.

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Oman-Reagan soon uncovered other usage examples that could be perceived as sexist.

Like ‘shrill’.

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And ‘psyche’.

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How did Oxford Dictionaries respond to the whole thing?

By calling him a rabid feminist, of course.

If only there were a word to describe how strongly you felt about feminism… https://t.co/mAsmjUBoOs
— Oxford Languages (@OxLanguages) January 22, 2016

Oxford Dictionaries / Twitter

D’oh.

As you might expect, people weren’t exactly impressed with the response.

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@OxfordWords Surely your response to valid criticism of sexist definitions isn't a dismissive tweet implying @OmanReagan is rabid abt fem.
— Kat Latham (@KatrinaLatham) January 22, 2016

Kat Latham / Twitter

@OxfordWords See, the original issue was just an oversight,but this is intentional snark at feminists. Even more unimpressive.
— pickwick (@pickwick) January 22, 2016

pickwick / Twitter

Oxford Dictionaries tried to argue that the term “rabid feminist” didn’t necessarily have negative connotations, but nobody was buying it.

@OxfordWords In that case, I'd love you to count up examples of when "rabid feminism" has been used positively or neutrally vs negatively.
— Kat Latham (@KatrinaLatham) January 22, 2016

Kat Latham / Twitter

Last night, Oxford Dictionaries apologised for their earlier tweet and stated that they would review the primary example sentence used for ‘rabid’.

1/4 We were flippant in some of our tweets yesterday. Sorry.
— Oxford Languages (@OxLanguages) January 23, 2016

Oxford Dictionaries / Twitter

2/4 'rabid fan' now has the highest frequency in the Oxford Corpus & 'rabid supporter' also frequent.
— Oxford Languages (@OxLanguages) January 23, 2016

Oxford Dictionaries / Twitter

3/4 We'll review the primary example sentence used for 'rabid'.
— Oxford Languages (@OxLanguages) January 23, 2016

Oxford Dictionaries / Twitter

Hear, hear.

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Amy O'Connor

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