{ feuilleton }

Avatar

• • • Being a journal by artist and designer John Coulthart, cataloguing interests, obsessions and passing enthusiasms.

“Scrotum” is a dirty word

“Scrotum” is a dirty word.
For some US librarians.

ShareThis

 


 

Posted in {noted}, {miscellaneous}.

 


 


 

4 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. gravatar

    Good to know for children.
    With the usual perversity displayed by the little critters, we’ll soon have hoardes of them chanting “scrotum, scrotum, scrotum” as they go along, trying to embarass adults with a new magic word.

  2. John

    gravatar

    American libraries seem to be particularly ban-happy:

    http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm

  3. gravatar

    I have read this on Neil Gaiman’s blog too.
    Weird…

  4. John

    gravatar

    Yes, the NYT picked up on the story which is where he seems to have spotted it. A useful link on his discussion:

    http://www.gelfmagazine.com/gelflog/archives/youth_literature_is_filled_with_scrotums.php

    Always good to remind people of precedent. Few seem aware of the amount of piss there is in the King James Bible, for instance, as in this notorious passage from Isaiah 1:

    36:12 But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? Hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?

    Are the scrotum-haters happy to let children read about men eating dung and drinking piss? I think we should be told.

 


 

Reply to ‘“Scrotum” is a dirty word’

Some HTML is allowed: ‹b›, ‹i›, ‹a› | Gravatars are encouraged.

 

 


 


    Translate { feuilleton }


       

 


 

“feed your head”

Close
Powered by ShareThis