Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Edits English
jbarr writes "An article in the 23-Oct-2000 issue of the New York Times (free reg blah blah blah) talks about how Microsoft has eliminated words from its thesaurus so as to "not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words". Entering a word like "idiot" yields no hits in Word 2000 unlike the numerous hits in Word 97." I don't think there's anything evil here, but it sure is funny.
Some people really hate them registrations..
October 23, 2001
Bowdlerized by Microsoft
By MARK GOLDBLATT
I was hard at the grindstone, crusading against hypocrisy and chaos, armed with my laptop and Microsoft Word 2000. I'd just typed: "Only a fool would believe." But "fool" did not seem right. So I hit Shift-F7 to call up the thesaurus. The lone synonym that Word provided was a verb: trick.
Where were the nouns? Where was idiot? I typed "idiot," hit Shift-F7, and got the message "not found." Then I tried goon. Again, not found. No luck with ninny, nincompoop or numbskull. Or with nitwit, halfwit, dimwit or twit. Or dullard, dunce or dolt.
"Jerk" called up yank, jolt, tug and twitch. "Dummy" produced mannequin and copy -- still not what I was looking for.
So I phoned a friend who also uses Word and asked him to test the phenomenon. He typed "fool," hit Shift-F7 -- and was provided a hearty menu of synonyms that included not just idiot and ninny, but such exotics as dunderhead and ignoramus. We realized the difference: He was working with Word 97, not the Word 2000 I was using.
Concluding that I had found a glitch in the updated version of Microsoft Word, I decided to inform Microsoft. I called and asked to speak to Bill Gates, but was directed to a cheerful person named Tim.
Tim transferred me to Kate, also cheerful, who promised to look into the matter. Several days later, Kate sent me an e-mail message with an explanation: "Microsoft's approach regarding the spell checker dictionary and thesaurus is to not suggest words that may have offensive uses or provide offensive definitions for any words. The dictionary and spell checker is updated with each release of Office to ensure that the tools reflect current social and cultural environments."
Was the world's foremost software designer worried about offending dullards, dunces and dolts? Are there actually people out there who identify themselves that way? Even if so, you wouldn't think they'd represent Microsoft's target demographic. More troubling, if an acute sensitivity to people's feelings had winnowed down Word 2000's thesaurus options, what changes loomed in the future? Word 2000 already changes "thier" to "their" as I type. Would the next generation evaporate "moron" from the screen the moment it appeared?
But maybe this isn't oversensitivity. Maybe it is what postmodernists call erasure: since language creates reality, if we erase every noun connoting below-average intelligence, the world instantly becomes a smarter place.
Now, if only Microsoft would erase "hypocrisy" and "chaos" . . . .
Mark Goldblatt, who teaches writing at the Fashion Institute of Technology, writes frequently about politics. He is the author of the forthcoming "Africa Speaks," a novel.
Actually, OpenOffice does a pretty reasonable job of dealing with Word documents...available for Windows as well as Linux; if you're on a mac, icWord will allow you to view and print (but not edit) Word documents, or the program MacLink plus will allow you translate documents back and forth between MS Word and AppleWorks format.
I'd get pretty tired of having to deal with printouts, myself...there are other options available to you...
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
> Restricting language is _very_ evil.
While I agree with this statement, I think I should point out that the sort of language restriction that occurs in 1984 is considered by most linguists not to be possible. Even if an entire generation were forced to speak in a certain restricted way, that doesn't remove any concepts from the language - the expectation is that even if children never learned certain words they would spontaniously reappear among language learners within a generation or two.
I believe (though I am not too familiar with this) that there is evidence of this in both spontaneous generation of complete sign languages in deaf child communities, and in (one-generation) transitions from pidgen languages to creole languages. Pidgen languages are sort of 'fake' languages that typically happen when adult speakers of many different languages suddenly live together and form a way to communicate. They are fake in that they lack many properties of natural language. These properties spontaneously reappear in their children, who learn to speak the creole, which is a full language.
It is really based on the assumption that language dictates thought - and there's quite a bit of evidence that this isn't true. Thought certainly dictates language to some extent, but forcibly removing parts of language won't take away the equivelent thoughts.
That all said, the removal of words from a thesaurus by Microsoft is a little disturbing - not because of anything that it does directly, but because of the precedent it sets. The only direct impact that I can think of is that people with limited vocabulary (and without a paper thesaurus) will have more trouble writing really vitriolic flames on slashdot. ("Damn, what's that synonym for idiot again, I just can't think of it!")