Hi, 
 
From http://www.dictionary.com 
 
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. 
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 
 
  
 black     P   Pronunciation Key  (blk) 
 adj. black*er, black*est  
1. Being of the color black, producing or reflecting comparatively little light and having no 
predominant hue. 
  
2. Having little or no light: a black, moonless night.  
often Black 
3.  Of or belonging to a racial group having brown to black skin, especially one of African origin: 
the Black population of South Africa.  
 Of or belonging to an American ethnic group descended from African peoples having dark skin; 
African-American. 
  
4. Very dark in color: rich black soil; black, wavy hair.  
5. Soiled, as from soot; dirty: feet black from playing outdoors.  
6. Evil; wicked: the pirates' black deeds.  
7. Cheerless and depressing; gloomy: black thoughts.  
8. Being or characterized by morbid or grimly satiric humor: a black comedy.  
9. Marked by anger or sullenness: gave me a black look.  
10. Attended with disaster; calamitous: a black day; the stock market crash on Black Friday.  
11. Deserving of, indicating, or incurring censure or dishonor: "Man... has written one of his 
blackest records as a destroyer on the oceanic islands" (Rachel Carson).  
12. Wearing clothing of the darkest visual hue: the black knight.  
13. Served without milk or cream: black coffee.  
14 Appearing to emanate from a source other than the actual point of origin. Used chiefly of 
intelligence operations: black propaganda; black radio transmissions.  
15. Disclosed, for reasons of security, only to an extremely limited number of authorized persons; 
very highly classified: black programs in the Defense Department; the Pentagon's black budget.  
16. Chiefly British. Boycotted as part of a labor union action. 
  
So using black as a synonym ofr criminal is correct.  black in this case referes to defintion 6, not 
the colour of someone's skin. 
 
I will remove redskin and nigger from the thesaurus since they are only used as degrogatory 
terms anymore. 
 
Kevin 
 
 
  

Hi, 
 
Okay, I have now removed redskin and nigger, but there were tons of racial slurs all through it. 
 
I have also tried to remove gook, whitely, honky, darky, and anything else I could find that was 
related to race. 
 
I will commit this now so that those words are gone from OOo 1.1.2 but I will need to do a more 
complete search for racist terms and bad words in the thesaurus which was based on a public 
domain word list. 
 
Thanks for catching that.  If anyone has a list of such words that should be checked for (the 
thesaurus text file is huge and hard to edit), I would be happy to remove those as well. 
 
Kevin 
 
 

Hi Simon, 
 
This was based on the public domain Mobey word list.  Hopefully, I have removed all derogatory 
racial slurs for all peoples (I hope). 
 
I am committing the new fixes to cws_srx645_ooo112fix1 right now. 
 
Kevin 
   

Hi, 
 
I also just removed a ton of ethnic slurs for just about every natiionality. 
 
I also checked for f*ck and other common swear fowrds but they don't seem to be present. 
 
The Mobey word list seems to be "equal opportunity" when it comes to racial and ethnic slurs. 
They hit just about everyone. 
 
I hopefully have  found them all. 
 
If anyone finds anythign else, please let me know. 
 
Kevin 
  

Hi Kevin, 
What about "spic" and the synonyms associcated. 
Also, "faggot"
Also, "boy"
Also, "dyke"
Also, "gook"
Also, "spade"

Of course, words such as "boy" "spade" and "frog" have neutral meanings and
synonyms as well. 

ref: http://www.totse.com/en/ego/literary_genius/terms.html

 

Hi Simon, 
 
I also just finished removing spic, Kraut, Mick, dago, frog (when used to refer to french), limey 
(for english), and wetback. 
 
I hand edited, boy to mean a youth, spade to refer to just a digging tool, and gook to refer just to a 
bunch of goo you that might get stuck on something, etc. 
 
I will look for faggot and try to remove those as well. 
 
If you can think of any others, please let me know and I will remove them as well. 
 
Thanks, 
 
Kevin 
  

Hi Simon, 
 
Okay, I removed all of the derogatory terms for people with alternative sexual prefernces. 
 
so now I thinkw e have removed 
 
1. all racial slurs 
2. all ethnic slurs for all nationalities 
3. all foul language 
4. all derogatory terms for people with altrernative lifestyles 
 
If you can think of any other words or categories I should search for and potentially remove, 
please let me know. 
 
I am just committed the latest fixes to OOo 1.1.2fix1 
 
Kevin 
 

Hi Kevin, 

I think the thesaurus is a lot "cleaner" now!

Still, consider: 

Charley
Arab
Red/Communist <-> terrorist/subversive

Love the comments.  I am Pawnee Indian.  For some reason neither I nor any
American Indian I know of is offended by "redskin."  It seems to offend
white-eyes, though -- guess they feel a little guilty and think if they never
mention us we'll go away.

I have several good friends who are black -- at least that is how they describe
themselves.  They refer to themselves as "nigger" rather frequently and include
it in writing.  I guess they're just dark colored crackers.

If we remove all words that might be racist or offensive to someone who is
hypersensitive, we'd have a very tiny dictionary and thesaurus.

BTW, "black" in English history from the time of the Old English to modern times
is a reference to criminal activity (not to a criminal but to the activity).

Perhaps it's time once again to appeal for sub-categories (you know, "nouns,"
"adjectives," "adverbs," and "verbs") in the thesaurus.

I must say, I think this is getting ridiculous! Kevin says, "I will remove 
redskin and nigger from the thesaurus since they are only used as degrogatory 
terms anymore." Well, Kevin just used them in a non-degrogatory fashion!

And "faggot" can (did) mean a "bunch of sticks". Just because some words have 
been "taken over" does not mean we should eliminate them. I am reminded of 
Orwell's "1984", where "Newspeak" was an attempt to restrict language. "Do you 
know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets 
smaller every year? Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow 
the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."

> And "faggot" can (did) mean a "bunch of sticks".
None of the synonyms given by the thesaurus appear to mean "bunch of sticks". 

set target to 1.1.2

I think this is a bit of fun rather than serious.  "Faggot" still means a
"bundle of sticks" and I use them when starting larger fires.  I forgot about
the "Newspeak" imagery of "1984" by George Orwell.  He was using some
information gained about Nazi use of terms and the "banned un-PC" terms in the
former Soviet Union.  All he was doing is extrapolating those trends.  Well,
surprise!  It's actually happening!

Robert, 
Be assured that, had the thesaurus contained a synonym for "faggot" that meant
"bundle of sticks" or anything similar, it would still be there.

Then the thesaurus needs to be updated because "faggot" is still used to mean a
"bundle of stick" (literally, "tied together.")

I was thinking of a few other bad words we could get rid of:
African
all curse words
arab
Asian
bazooka
bean
bigot
black
brick
brown
boy
chicano
chink
he
her
girl
green
latino
manhood
melon
puffy
racist
red
rock
spade
stick
tar
thing
tool
watermelon
white
woman (should be "womin" or something similar)
yellow
(any word with the trigram "man" in it)
etc., etc., etc,.

I can provide good reasons for all of these and they're just scratching the
surface.  If we're going to be pc, why not be all the way pc and suggest
"pre-woman" for "girl" and "pre-vaginally-challenged human being" for boy? 
Believe it or not, I've seen the pre-woman thing in some thesauri.

Yech!  If the point is to accomodate users, then we adopt the usage standards of
dictionaries and thesauri world wide: actual usage of native speakers, not
"standards" that change almost weekly.

If you look at it, the list of "forbidden words" we use today was entirely
different in the 1940's, 1950's, 1960's, 1970's -- do I need to go on?  Do we
issue bienniel updates to the thesaurus to reflect current sensibilities or do
we seek to reflect actual usage?  Personally, in what is supposed to be a
professional level application, I don't want a thesaurus that supports a
politcal, religious or other agenda in any form.  I want a professional level
thesaurus.

As suggested, categories like "slang," "nouns," "formal" or some other such
categories introduced into the thesaurus would both reduce the amount of static
in each entry (something desperately needed) and provide usages common to many
native speakers.  Imagine trying to be pc in American, British, Canadian,
Australian, Indian and New Zealand versions of English.  You more than double
the amount of effort to make sure each one is "correct" and for little gain.

As it is, there is enough deleting and adding for each variety without
introducing the ever shifting sensibilities of some people which itself offends
the sensibilities of other people.

One last note and I'm dropping this.  Having the "non-pc" meanings in a
thesaurus also alerts users to possible negative connotations of a word. 
Leaving them out means some non-native speakers will use terms that offend
native speakers.

At my age, it is hard to keep up with the ever-changing insults, real or
imagined as words once used (and still in common usage) are coopted by others to
be real or imagined insults (forgive my repetition).  Having the "bad" meanings
in a thesaurus has helped me avoid using a term with potentially damaging
effects on my communications.  "PC" thesauri becomes more and more a
disadvantage as people age and old but normal words become insults while old
insults become normal vocabulary.

Just something to think about before consigning OOo to that category of
half-useful applications that so plagued the 1980's (the worst period for pc
usage I know of).

I am actually quite sure that NONE of the words in Robert's list would have been
considered for removal from the thesaurus. Kevin Hendricks' observations on the
word "black" suggest similar reservations with regard to "political correctness"
to those expressed by Robert and others. So IMO there is no reason to be
concerned about that. 

verifying

This is a slippery slope, will inevitably be biased towards the agenda and
sensibilities of one or another group, and has no good reason to recommend it.
The suggestion that the exclusion of particular non-swear word terms "not a
question of political correctness but of basic decency" simply reveals where the
biases and sensibilities of the suggester lie.

Of course, finding what counts as a swear word is likewise no exact science, but
whether a convincing case could be made that a word is a swear word ought to be
somewhat clearer than whether a word is "PC" enough. For instance, "redskin"
clearly is not a swear word, while "nigger" may well be one.

You have to remember here that the subject is a thesaurus, not a dictionary. 
This means that the synonym must be one word not a phrase. Therefore fagot 
(correct spelling--not faggot) does not have synonym and does not appear in 
thesauri, but does appear in dictionaries.

Another example is "redskin." Although a correct definition may be something 
like "a virety of peanut," it is not found in a thesaurus as it take a phrase 
to define. Generally speaking, if you need a phrase to define a word, it is not 
included in a thesaurus.

That being said, there are several words in this thread that have been bandied 
about that really do have nuetral synonyms. Remember a thesaurus not about 
definitions. It is for synonyms and antonyms.

The most practical suggestion is to leave the thesaurus as it is. Users use a 
thesaurus to find other words which have the same meaning. Suppose we do have 
an ignorant person who is trying to write a paper and uses the word "black" 
or "colored" to refer to an African-American. He may have used this term out of 
ingnorance or habit. If it is included in the thesaurus, it helps him find that 
it is a synonym of "African-American" and then uses that phrase.

To say that the person should know better in the first place defeats the 
purpose of a thesaurus, which is to find the ideal word to use in a given 
context.

I do agree however that words that have no other meaning than a derogatory one, 
and are generally well known (like "spic" or "dago") could be considered for 
deletion. This is not "newspeak." This is simply the natural evolution of the 
English language. If we are to follow what some on this site say about a rigid 
vocabulary, we should still be saying, "Mefinks thou shouldst mindeth thine 
owen bufyneff."

I take it back. None of these words should be removed fromt he thesaurus. Some 
uses may actually need them even if they are derogatory. A person may be a 
legal secretary who has to take down depositions which includes exact quotes. 
The words may be derogatory, but there may still be legitimate occasions in 
which they may be used.

Take this thread for example. These words have been presented several times, 
and have not been used in a derogarory fashion, but an educational one (with 
the possible exception of rblackeagles comments which are obviously intended to 
urinate someone off.)

It goes back to what I said before about shoose the correct word for the 
correct context. The contexts is what determines that an African-American can 
use the word "nigga" as a term of endearment, but a Caucasian using it is 
anathema.  

close issue.