The New York State Department of Education syllabus says that a teacher instructing students about STDs and sex should encourage children to use words they understand. "If students use different terms," the syllabus says, "make sure they understand the relationship between both sets of terms." So during a class on HIV one day in 2008, Staten Island health teacher Faith Kramer did just that, writing down the clinical words for sexual organs, sexual acts and bodily fluids on the chalkboard, then asking the eighth grade students what language they used to talk about such matters. That's when the trouble started. more ›

In an article that seems to blur the NY Times' own decency standards, the paper of record examines how the word "douche" has evolved from a personal hygiene product into a popular TV pejorative. We're not particularly concerned with the journalistic merits of the piece — we'll leave that to the seasoned Times critics over at nytpick who claim the paper shouldn't have gotten its numbers on TV vulgarity from a Conservative anti-cussing group. But we were shocked to see the paper print the word "douche" five times in a page-one piece, when just last week it censored the words "fat chick" in an article about an online alibi by indirectly quoting a Facebook status update. Not to say that the Times' much-ballyhooed decency standards are a good thing, but consistency certainly is. more ›