Apple asked to change definition of ‘gay’

Apple asked to change definition of ‘gay’

Fifteen-year-old Becca Gorman, a daughter of lesbian parents, is campaigning for global tech giant Apple to redefine their version of the word gay in their dictionary.

Currently the meaning of the word gay reads:

 

o-GAY-570

 

It is Point 3 that caught the eye of the the student who was at the time working on a school project about gay rights: “informal foolish: stupid: making students wait for the light is kind of a gay rule,” the definition reads.

The teenager has been quoted in media saying that, “At first, I was kind of in disbelief,” before saying that she couldn’t find any other dictionary’s definition that framed “gay” within the same context.

Gorman then proceeded to contact apple CEO Tim Cook, who is openly-gay, and received a response within the hour from Apple from a company representative saying that they would look into the problem.

Daniel Witthaus, an anti-homophobia educator who visits schools across Australia, told News.com.au this week that the phrase’s popularity can be traced back to the adult-themed cartoon South Park.

Mr Witthaus noticed the phrase caught on after the TV show used the term in an ironic sense in the late 1990s.

“You can trace it back to South Park in the late 1990s,” he said. “It exploded in terms overnight and certainly became part of the common language.”

The term was sometimes used beforehand as a disparaging remark to people who did not fit, he said, but the TV show’s producers made it even more popular.

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