Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:15:09 -0500

From: Beverly Flanigan FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: Re: PC Dictionaries?



I'm much less worried about dictionaries' inadequate or inexact

definitions of words (though M-W's defs of the n-word seem exemplary)

than I am about everyday use of them--witness the boy on the playground

first labeling and then shunning another child. I'm also concerned

about people who do not seem to realize that "nigger" is "perhaps the

most offensive and inflammatory racial slur in English" (M-W, 10th

ed.). A non-American T.A. in our introductory linguistics program may

(perhaps) be excused for not knowing the word's cultural history

("After all, it's just a word"); the rest of us cannot.