The Term ‘Essex Girl’ Is Removed From Dictionaries As It Is Deemed Offensive

THE Term ‘Essex Girl’ Is Removed From Dictionaries As It Is Deemed Offensive, after a long campaign to have it removed

Oxford University Press (OUP), agreed to remove the term ‘Essex girl’ from future prints of its Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, as, after a long-running campaign by The Essex Girls Liberation Front, the term has been branded as offensive to young women in the county of Essex, with the entry for ‘Essex girls’ stating, “A name used especially in jokes to refer to a type of young woman who is not intelligent, dresses badly, talks in a loud and ugly way and is very willing to have sex”.

OUP’s Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is the one used by foreign language student’s to learn English, however, the term will stay in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), as its publishers are claiming it is a “historical dictionary”, in which “nothing is ever taken out”, its description saying the term is a “derogatory” and “contemptuous” stereotype of a “type of young woman, supposedly found in and around Essex, and variously characterised as unintelligent, promiscuous and materialistic”.

The campaign was started by author, Syd Moore, before other campaigns joined, among them, ‘Snapping the Stiletto’, supported by Chelmsford girl, Penny Lancaster and Southend-On-Sea’s, Dame Helen Mirren, which received a £200,000 lottery grant.
Some campaigners were quick to point out that reality show, ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ did not help their cause, and that characters in the TV show are not representative of the females who live in Essex.

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