Odd goings on at that bastion of hope for word-impoverished writers everywhere, thesaurus.com, have come to the Vulture's attention this morning.
Anyone looking for a synonym for the word Arab in the online version of Roget's thesaurus will hunt in vain. According to the Telegraph, the word has been withdrawn from thesaurus.com after complaints that the 16 other options offered included "beggar", "homeless person" and "slimeball". The derogatory references are thought to have been linked to the 18th century term "street Arab" but a spokeswoman for Roget isn't taking any chances. "We're simply going to take it out," she told the Washington Post. "The last thing you want with a thesaurus is to offend anyone".
And so, this morning, on entering "Arab" into thesaurus.com, seekers of synonyms are asked if they really meant "crab", "drab" or "grab". Vulture isn't entirely convinced that's an improvement.
It all seems a little extreme. Personally, I find some of the synonyms on offer for "female" - hussy, old bat, cupcake, shrew, piece, to name just a few - less than attractive, but marking these as "slang" or "offensive slang" would clearly indicate that they should be used with care (although I'm not sufficiently exercised by the matter to advocate such a move). In the case of the 18th-century words for Arab, would not labelling them "archaic slang" or even removing just those specific, undoubtedly offensive, words be a preferable to deleting the entire entry?
