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詞典君此刻的心情：
Maria Beatrice Giovanardi是倫敦的一個營銷傳播專家。夏天的某一天，她在網上查找有關女性收入的信息，當她在搜索欄裡輸入「女性」一詞時，被跳出來的同義詞驚到了，全都是貶損女性的，諸如碧池、潑婦、母驢、妓女、脆弱、嘮叨等。
當時的截圖 via Giovanardi
「I was like, 'What’s going on? Why are these the synonyms?,」 Giovanardi, 28, told 「Good Morning America.」 「I don’t see myself like this as a woman.
Giovanardi告訴早安美國節目，「我當時的感覺就是『啥玩意？為什麼是這樣的同義詞？『」「作為女性，我並不認為我是這樣的人。」
「My girlfriends don’t speak like this so it’s a man’s point of view,」 she recalled thinking.
她回憶道：「我的女朋友們也不會這樣說話，所以這完全是男性視角。」
▲ Is the dictionary sexist? Petition calls for Oxford English Dictionary to remove sexist terms for women (via abcnews)
Giovanardi看了看來源，發現這些信息的來源是牛津大學出版社。
As Giovanardi looked further into it, she saw more examples of what she described as sexist language, including using sentences like these as examples alongside the definition of women: "『One of his sophisticated London women"; "Don't be daft, woman!" and "he wondered whether Billy had his woman with him."
隨著進一步的探究，她發現了更多歧視性語言。比如詞條下選擇了這樣的例子：「他精明世故的倫敦女人之一」、「別傻了，女人！」「他想知道比利是否帶著他的女人」。
▲ Is the dictionary sexist? Petition calls for Oxford English Dictionary to remove sexist terms for women (via abcnews)
截圖 via lexico.com
"If you look up 'man' you see sentences of what men can be doing as individuals, while with women you see sentences of women as an oppressed group, not as individuals," she said. "Their goal is to portray language but this has a very judgmental bias."
她說：「如果你去查『男人『這個詞，例句都是男人作為個體在做什麼事，而有關女人的句子都是被視為一個受壓迫的群體，而不是獨立的個人。」「他們的目的應該是描寫語言，但這樣的行為有很強的主觀偏見。」
▲ Is the dictionary sexist? Petition calls for Oxford English Dictionary to remove sexist terms for women (via abcnews)
於是，Giovanardi去Change.org上發起了一個請願，題為「改變牛津詞典中『女人』一詞的性別歧視定義」。從六月至今，已經有近3萬人籤名支持。圖 via Giovanardi
這份請願書已經引起了牛津大學出版社的注意，該出版社專門發布了一篇博客來回應請願書。圖 via Oxford Dictionaries
The post specifies that the content around women called out by the petition comes from the Oxford Thesaurus of English and the Oxford Dictionary of English, which "aim to cover contemporary English usage and are accessible online in a variety of formats."
文中明確指出，請願書中有關女性的內容的確來自《牛津同義詞大詞典》和《牛津英語詞典》，「旨在涵蓋當代英語用法，並可通過多種渠道在網上查找。」
"These texts are based on the methodologies of descriptive, corpus-based lexicography, meaning that editors analyse large quantities of evidence from real-life use to determine the meanings of words," the post explains in part. "If there is evidence of an offensive or derogatory word or meaning being widely used in English, it will not be excluded from the dictionary solely on the grounds that it is offensive or derogatory."
「這些文本是基於描述性的、基於語料庫的詞典編纂方法，這意味著編輯從現實生活中分析大量證據，以確定單詞的含義，」文章解釋道。「如果有證據表明冒犯性或貶低性的詞語或含義在英語中廣泛使用，則不會僅因其具有攻擊性或貶義性而將其從詞典中剔除。」
▲ Is the dictionary sexist? Petition calls for Oxford English Dictionary to remove sexist terms for women (via abcnews)
然而這樣的解釋並不能讓Giovanardi滿意，她說不管壓力多大都會堅持下去，因為性別歧視是不可接受的。"Our point is that sexism against someone is not acceptable and it is not okay to have definitions like these about women," she said. "We also want them to remove the sentences that denote women being the property of men, and there’s a lot of them, and make it more inclusive."
「我們的觀點是，對某人的性別歧視是不可接受的，也不能對女性有這樣的定義，」她說。「我們還希望他們刪除那些把女性看做男性財產的諸多句子，讓他們的例句庫更具包容性。」
▲ Is the dictionary sexist? Petition calls for Oxford English Dictionary to remove sexist terms for women (via abcnews)
A: 就是這類事情讓我覺得作為一個女人好尷尬。
B: 我也是。
簡直是史上最糟的請願了。這世上沒有更緊迫的事要做了嗎？我是說那些真正的問題。
把詞從語言中刪掉？
這是我聽過最蠢的主意。
一個自稱是語言學家和女權主義者的網友解釋了為什麼她不支持這個請願：這實際上是一個相當沒用的建議。但即使不是這樣，對此的憤怒也是不恰當的。遊說字典使其定義符合你的政治偏好是不對的(這就是為什麼我沒有籤名)。
文：A君
資料/圖：abcnews, Oxford Dictionaries, lexico.com, Twiter
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