Accidental Insensitivity
Posted on December 19th, 2012by jake
In Culture, Words | Leave a Comment »
The Oxford English Dictionary has come under fire for choosing ‘bloodbath’ as its word of the day. The word has been deemed insensitive and ill timed in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings which claimed the lives of 27 people. The OED released a statement explaining that:
“The timing of today’s word is a coincidence of the worst kind, and we apologize for any distress or upset caused by what might seem to be a highly insensitive choice,” [...] “What we hope to show with our words of the day is that even seemingly commonplace words can have interesting etymologies; however we have taken today’s word down from the OED Online homepage and are now taking immediate steps to review our scheduling and selection policy.”
This has not been the first case of accidental insensitivity with many news reports condemning gun advertisements being placed next to reports of the shootings.
via: Global Post