Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Oh, criminy:
The [1]San Francisco Chronicle reports:
It wasn't a four-letter word, but it was close enough to cause a
stir at the National Scrabble Championship Thursday.
In the final round, eventual champion Trey Wright played the word
"lez," which was on a list of offensive words not allowed during
the tournament.
Normally, no word is off-limits, but because the games were being
taped for broadcast on ESPN, certain terms had been deemed
inappropriate, including the three-letter slang for lesbian.
"There are words you just can't show on television," Scrabble
Association Executive Director John Williams said. . . .
Yes, I know the Third Edition of the Scrabble Dictionary excludes some
offensive words. I'm not wild about that, but at least I can
understand the "game the whole family should be able to play" theory,
given that some families don't want their kids using those words even
in a lexicographic context. But this is just silly.
References
1.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/05/national2230EDT0803.DTL
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