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.
Not that I think there's some grand conspiracy here, but it's a good quote.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Does Microsoft have a specific agenda in this?
Why would they be trying to stifle condescending nouns?
I can hardly see the people at Micro$oft who are in charge of these things sitting around in a corporate "think tank", just coming up with this stuff. Could it be that people actually filed complaints?
Perhaps they are simply taking the Disney Cop-Out approach.
Perhaps Micro$oft is trying to be more PR.
We all know however that Nintendo decided that this does not work
Still, I do not say that such an act is justified.
It seems to me that the Dictionary in MS-Word will still deal with these words.
A Thesaurus, however is a tool of suggesting.
It appears that Micro$oft has decided on being less suggestive.
Suppose I write a sentence referring to someone as a dolt. Then, I don't find dolt to be the right word. If that is the case it may bes that the person is not exactly a dolt, but more of an ass. Perhaps Micro$oft does not want to take the flack for someone being referred to as an ass. After all, it would have been suggested by them!
I don't see this as being totally evil. I think that if I want to properly insult another, I should be able to do it on my own.
It would be evil for Microsoft to not allow insulting words all together. To deny their existence by force.
That would be ver 1984.
Still, I am merely speculating, and am curious of their true motives.
MS Windows controls the desktop market with over 90% marketshare. This is a fact.
The word processor package most Windows workstations (home or office) use is Word. This is also a fact. Even systems built for the home market are being shipped with the Small Business edition of Office. University students here at UW-Madison (WI) have the opportunity (through a deal between the UW and MS) to purchase full-blown version of Office 2000 Professional for $26, which of course encourages students to use that package.
Now, an observation I've recently made is that people are much, much more reliant on the MS tools for grammar, spelling and word selection that I would have believed. We recently rolled out MS Exchange with Outlook, and I was planning on allowing my remote users to avoid the pain of setting up a VPN client and running the Outlook fat client by simply using the Outlook Web Agent. The plan was nixed shortly after roll-out. The primary reasons? No spellchecker, no access to the grammar and thesaurus tools. I was stunned to find that of the 30 people in the HQ, only I and one other person did not have to resort to those tools to craft a business-grade letter or email.
In short, more people than you would believe need those tools to express themselves. And thanks to Orwell's 1984, we do know what happens when you start removing definitions and /or associations from words: people lose the ability to communicate certain ideas. And after a time, people will lose the ability to formulate those ideas.
Microsoft's actions in this case are reprehensible, and they are rightly being taken to task for it.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
"""The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of ' politically free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless."""
m l
Steve Ballmer and others at Microsoft have tried to "redefine" the GNU Free software licence as a "cancer".
From
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/19396.ht
"""Microsoft CEO and incontinent over-stater of facts Steve Ballmer said that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches,"""
I can't remember the last time I had to craft a business letter. Anyway, used to be we had a pool of typists and wordsmythes. I just submitted my prose to them and they corrected my grammer and spelling. Typed it up and returned it for my approval. Turnaround was slower, but my output sure looked and sounded better. But my lament, my muse is a nugatory, trifling, inconsquential concern.
I sure could use someone to tighten up this post and make me look educated.
The issue here is really the implications of a corporate, lowest-common-denominator, approach as applied to the single most widely used word processing tool. Can you still use a *shudder* hard copy thesaurus as you write, absolutely. How many people do so? So when a company guts a tool that is widely used to add depth and breadth to countless users prose, it does have bad implications.
The written word is a profoundly powerful tool. This move potentially removes a means for many to "find their voice," which is to say, to find the word that *truly* voices their intent. VI Lenin said the following about the power of language, it is, I think, apropos:
Why should freedom of speech and freedom of the press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should a man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?
I remember the day when you bought a dictionary/thesaurus as a third party add on for the word processor of your choice. I stopped buying them when those that were included were as strong as what I could get elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to rethink that decision.
/rootrot
I have read an english translation of Maceavelli's The Prince, and in the notes from the translater he points out that several of Maciavelli's wordes and phrases have NO direct english translation.
The real kicker is the word virtu which gets IIRC 8 diffrent interpritations.
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
Correct. And that is why it should be written Unix, not UNIX.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.