News

23014 readers

2 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

657

School district bans the dictionary to comply with Ron DeSantis’s book-ban law (www.lgbtqnation.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

75 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A Florida school district has literally banned the dictionary in an effort to comply with Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R) book-banning law.

The Escambia County School District has reportedly removed over 2800 books from library shelves as they undergo a review process that will determine if they are inappropriate for students, according to Popular Information. Among the books currently relegated to storage are The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Webster’s Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary.

The district contends these texts could violate H.B. 1069, which DeSantis signed into law in May 2023.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

When I was a wee lad reading something I would ask my parents what words meant and we would look it up in the dictionary. Eventually I just did it by myself so the answer to your question is "most of them". I haven't had to check my dictionary for some time recently but my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is still in a prominent place in my bookcase, right next to my Roget's II.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Given that dictionaries are a relatively recent development in history, and yet people did manage to speak English, I can guarantee you that 'most of them' is a massive over-estimate.

To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that dictionaries aren't useful or that them being inaccessible is a good thing, but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people's linguistic knowledge is learned unconsciously through context and simply talking and hearing other people speak.

Just to throw it at you, of your first sentence there:

When I was a wee lad reading something I would ask my parents what words meant and we would look it up in the dictionary

I would essentially guarantee you didn't learn any of those words by looking them up in a dictionary, and you probably knew them all before you could even read, with the exception of 'dictionary'.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Just to chime in here again to you and the person you're replying to. Maybe you can both lament with me. I learned many words the same way, having a parent that would grab a dictionary, and I do the same thing as a parent.

Let's take a second to pour one out for the words we learned serendipitously, just flipping through the dictionary for fun, or an encyclopedia, or just the library stacks.

In so many ways, search engines, algorithms, and memes have robbed us of this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yeah you never forget your first Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.