Writing in the Guardian’s Book blog, the author Meg Rosoff complains that Microsoft’s gone through its dictionary and thesaurus has been eradicated every decent English word in there. About her MS Word software, she says:
The damnable thing has a built-in censor, so if you happen to be in need of another word for penis, sex, bastard, whore, or bimbo, you’re stuck. Other words that are recognised neither by Word’s dictionary nor its thesaurus are “harridan”, “bitch” (not even a female dog, though we do get “bitchy” and “horny”). Occasionally, I actually learn something useful, as in the Microsoft definition of “prat” - the buttocks. Who knew?
…”Queer” makes an appearance in the thesaurus, where we’re told it means “funny”, “perplexing”, “odd”, or “curious”, but is not present in the dictionary at all. I imagine the Word Dictionary Compiler muttering, “let’s not even go there.” Interestingly, the dictionary also gives us “missionary position” but not “doggy style”… “Bugger”, on the other hand, makes an appearance in the dictionary only, where it has two meanings as indicated by the little “2″ beside the word. But in the event, it delivers only one meaning - “someone who conceals listening devices”. We can pretty much guess what the other meaning might be, but what’s happened to it?
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: Bugger! Microsoft has deleted the dirty words
