Have a Kerfuffle?

When I looked into my twitter feed yesterday, I found a post mentioning the Oxford English Dictionary... and that led into finding a full-blown kerfuffle. The reason? This tweet.

Hey @OxfordWords, why is “rabid feminist” the usage example of “rabid” in your dictionary - maybe change that? pic.twitter.com/3zJnwZ3RLx

— Michael Oman-Reagan (@OmanReagan) 21. Januar 2016

What followed was... interesting. There was some agreement that this was not a good choice for a use-case example, and there was lots and lots of harrassing, attacking and snarking at both Michael Oman-Reagan and those who agreed with his critique.

There was also a, let's say, less than smart reply from the OED twitter account. They have since relented and promised to review their use-case example for rabid. Why does that matter? Here's what Michael writes about this thing. There are also a few other articles about the kerfuffle, such as this one at Geeking Bad, or this one at Metro UK, or this one at carbonated.tv.

This is not the first time somebody wrote something about the OED being sexist: Michael also mentioned an article, written in 2014, in his twitter feed, though that one seems to have gotten only little attention.

Words matter, and language and culture are closely connected to each other - so yes, what a dictionary gives as "typical example use" does matter. There will always be differences between men and women, unless science finds a way to enable men to become pregnant and give women the same muscle structure and muscle-to-fat ratios that men get. But while there may be differences - wouldn't it be a much nicer world if we even out the rest of the field as much as possible?