activist Maria Beatrice Giovanardi, who was also behind an earlier campaign to get the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to remove words such as "bint" and "bird" as other ways of saying "woman". After a similar petition attracted tens of thousands of signatures, Oxford University Press updated its definition
I don't support removing words that are or were used, however offensive they might be to some people. Dictionaries are meant to record actual usage and I think Oxford University Press responded appropriately:
"(Maria Beatrice Giovanardi's) petition called for all definitions and phrases that “discriminate and patronise” or “connote men’s ownership” of women to be removed. It also demanded that examples included lesbian and transgender women, too."
"The words “bint” and “bitch” are still listed as synonyms for “woman”, but labels have now been applied to terms considered “offensive”, “derogatory”, or “dated”. As an OUP spokesperson explained, their dictionaries “reflect, rather than dictate, how language is used. This is driven solely by evidence of how real people use English in their daily lives.”
www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/maria-beatrice-giovanardi-sexist-definitions-oxford-dictionary
Taking a word out of the dictionary, or not accurately reflecting its usage, is not going to stop people using the word nor change the attitudes behind its offensive, derogatory usage. At best, all it would do is inconvenience people unfamiliar with the word who need to look it up - and Scrabble players stymied by discovering that it is, apparently, not "real" word.
I have no idea about Italian but in English I would not think that "whore" is a synonym for "woman" in the way that "bird" and "bint" are, any more than "pimp" is a synonym for "man" but "bloke" and "geezer" are.
bird | bəːd |
noun
2 informal a person of a specified kind or character: she's a sharp old bird.
3 British informal a young woman or a girlfriend.
ORIGIN
Old English brid ‘chick, fledgling’, of unknown origin.
bint | bɪnt |
noun British informal, derogatory
a girl or woman.
ORIGIN
mid 19th century: from Arabic, literally ‘daughter, girl’.
I always thought that "bint" was Northern dialect but it seems that I am wrong:
Websters College Dictionary:
usage: This term is usually used with disparaging intent and perceived as insulting. It was in common use by British soldiers during World War I and II.
The examples given by Lexico (powered by the Oxford dictionary) suggest that "informal" or "mildly self-deprecating" usage is quite common, rather than always disparaging and insulting:
‘It's all better than the show with the 5 posh advertising bints who are catty at each other in order to win a pointless facsimile of a boring man in marketing simply because he is loaded.’
‘We arrived in Exeter at and retrieved the keys from the bints at the letting agency, drove to Silverton and arrived at the lovely, lovely cottage.’
‘I loved finally knowing this, just as I love the once-every-five-years moment in The Archers when the wronged spouse finds out what we knew all along, about what her husband and the Irish bint have been up to behind the woodshed.’
‘I was petrified that the silly bint would release the final book next year (as she has confirmed), with me still waiting for the fifth and sixth films to come out.’
‘An overheard conversation in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil, featuring a PR bint talking about her recent honeymoon.’
‘He is a bit 1980s and the assumption will be that when Nettles shuffles into frame, an 80s bint with gravity defying shoulders will not be far behind.’
‘I may be a lairy bint but underneath it all, I'm still British.’
‘I confess that the fine art of cooking has been eluding me for quite some time, mainly on the basis that I am a lazy bint and Viv is generally amenable to cooking.’
‘Am I supposed to have a rant about the stupid bint in Starbucks this morning who overcharged me by entering entirely the wrong product on the till?’
‘He knows what a pathetic bint I can be at times and, as such, is probably trying to protect himself from tear-stained phone calls.’
‘No prizes for spotting my finger, but see if you can spot the annoying bint standing in the way of a sign explaining what was going on in one of the pictures.’
‘It's edited by the same bint who sometimes comments in these threads.’
‘So because my brain is really in holiday mode and I'm just rolling my arm over creating a new poll, you daft bints who make new years resolutions can vote in the 2005 resolutions poll.’
‘As we waited at an intersection I wondered whether or not three days of marriage was long enough for me to spew forth my first I Told You So, and did I really want to establish myself as a nagging bint so early in the game?’
‘She's a silly bint for being so confrontational and not being able to back it up though.’
‘I'm a tough sort of bint that doesn't generally blub at this kind of thing.’
‘In moments of panic, I am a totally useless bint.’
‘Yet if anyone's living a fantasy it's this cheeky bint.’
‘Yup, that's right, some posh bint threw herself under the King's horse in, like, 1872 or something.’
Sorry - got a bit distracted by "bint"!!