arniejolt
10-15-2007, 08:25 AM
Ack, again with the auto-censoring, strange that it goes after the male-oriented word but not the female-oriented one...from The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.50164):
Ubisoft's portable Scrabble game gets attacked for g*y terminology.
Zachary McAdam, an Ulster, Ireland, man, is calling for a Nintendo DS Scrabble game published by Ubisoft to be recalled after discovering that the word "lesbo" is counted in its anagram section. McAdam, an IT project manager from Holywood, was playing Junior Scrabble 2007 with his 7-year-old daughter Ellen, but halted when the word appeared on screen.
He said, "We were stuck trying to find the last five-letter anagram so I hit the give-up option and the term 'lesbo' appeared on the screen. I nearly fell off my chair. The term 'lesbo' is a slang name intentionally meant to cause offense. I looked it up on the website dictionary.com just to make sure I wasn't overreacting, and it described the word as a noun, slang, disparaging and offensive."
Junior Scrabble 2007 is based on the word list provided by the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary. The Chambers definition for "lesbo" reads: "Derogatory slang short form of lesbian. Although lesbo did not become current until 1940s: previously used by heterosexuals as derisive insults to g*y women, though it seems that g*y women are now using the words to describe themselves in positive terms."
Northern Ireland g*y Rights Association spokesman PA MagLochlainn said, "I would never use the word. The correct term is lesbian. I am not in the least bit surprised it is included because the young men who design these games are not taught by schools that these words can be used as a form of homophobic bullying."
You can find the article along with Ubisoft's reaction at The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.50164).
Ubisoft's portable Scrabble game gets attacked for g*y terminology.
Zachary McAdam, an Ulster, Ireland, man, is calling for a Nintendo DS Scrabble game published by Ubisoft to be recalled after discovering that the word "lesbo" is counted in its anagram section. McAdam, an IT project manager from Holywood, was playing Junior Scrabble 2007 with his 7-year-old daughter Ellen, but halted when the word appeared on screen.
He said, "We were stuck trying to find the last five-letter anagram so I hit the give-up option and the term 'lesbo' appeared on the screen. I nearly fell off my chair. The term 'lesbo' is a slang name intentionally meant to cause offense. I looked it up on the website dictionary.com just to make sure I wasn't overreacting, and it described the word as a noun, slang, disparaging and offensive."
Junior Scrabble 2007 is based on the word list provided by the Chambers Official Scrabble Dictionary. The Chambers definition for "lesbo" reads: "Derogatory slang short form of lesbian. Although lesbo did not become current until 1940s: previously used by heterosexuals as derisive insults to g*y women, though it seems that g*y women are now using the words to describe themselves in positive terms."
Northern Ireland g*y Rights Association spokesman PA MagLochlainn said, "I would never use the word. The correct term is lesbian. I am not in the least bit surprised it is included because the young men who design these games are not taught by schools that these words can be used as a form of homophobic bullying."
You can find the article along with Ubisoft's reaction at The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.50164).
