British Expatriate Network

We all love to hate political correctness. But do you take part in it or use pc words/phrases? The Global Language Monitor has released a tongue-in-cheek list of pc terms of the year. These lists always make me laugh, cringe and annoyed all at the same time.

http//www.languagemonitor.com/
http//today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-11-18T014425Z_01_MCC806199_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-WORDS.XML

"The Top Politically inCorrect Words and Phrases for 2005

1. Misguided Criminals for Terrorist The BBC attempts to strip away all emotion by using what it considers neutral descriptions when describing those who carried out the bombings in the London Tubes. The rub the professed intent of these misguided criminals was to kill, without warning, as many innocents as possible (which is the common definition for the term, terrorist).

2. Intrinsic Aptitude (or lack thereof) was a suggestion by Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, on why women might be underrepresented in engineering and science. He was nearly fired for his speculation.

3. Thought Shower or Word Shower substituting for brainstorm so as not to offend those with brain disorders such as epilepsy.

4. Scum or "la racaille" for French citizens of Moslem and North African descent inhabiting the projects ringing French Cities. France's Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, used this label to describe the young rioters (and by extension all the inhabitants of the Cites).

5. Out of the Mainstream when used to describe the ideology of any political opponent At one time slavery was in the mainstream, thinking the sun orbited the earth was in the mainstream, having your blood sucked out by leeches was in the mainstream. What's so great about being in the mainstream?

6. Deferred Success as a euphemism for the word fail. The Professional Association of Teachers in the UK considered a proposal to replace any notion of failure with deferred success in order to bolster students self-esteem.

7. Womyn for Women to distance the word from man. This in spite of the fact that the term man in the original Indo-European is gender neutral (as have been its successors for some 5,000 years).

8. C.E. for A.D. Is the current year A.D. 2005 or 2005 C.E.? There is a movement to strip A.D. (Latin for Year of our Lord) from the year designation used in the West since the 5th century and replace it with the supposedly more neutral Common Era (though the zero reference year for the beginning of the Common Era remains the year of Christs birth).

9. "God Rest Ye Merry Persons" for "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" A Christmas, eh, Holiday, carol with 500 years of history is not enough to sway the Anglican Church at Cardiff Cathedral (Wales) from changing the original lyrics.

10. Banning the word Mate the Department of Parliamentary Services in Canberra issued a general warning to its security staff banning the use of the word 'mate' in any dealings they might have with both members of the Parliament and the public. What next? banning Down Under so as not to offend those living in the Up Over.

Holiday Bonus Happy Holidays or Season's Greetings for Christmas (which in some UK schools now label Wintervale. (In the word X-Mas, the Greek letter 'Chi' represented by the Roman X actually stands for the first two letters of the name Christ.)

Last year the Top Politically Incorrect words were Los Angeles Countys insistence of covering over with labels any computer networking protocols that mention master/slave jargon. Following closely were non-same sex marriage for marriage, and waitron for waiter or waitress."


Working at a museum of disability I come across this stuff all the time. For example, we use the word "idiot" to describe certain people because that is how people who worked in asylums in the late 19th century described them. Sometimes people complain to one of my workmates, many of whom have mental disabilities of some form, and they cannot persuade people of the historical context. I cannot tell you how weird it is seeing someone say "that's offensive" to someone with a disability who replies "not to me."

I was just pondering political correctness the other day. Is there a term for just being generally thick? You know, when the Special Education staff have done every test they can and can't come up with a specific syndrome or disorder? And if so, are we allowed to discriminate against them once they've left the education system? Are we getting to the point where we must allow anyone who wants to to be a brain surgeon/astronaut/[strike]president[/strike] so as not to discriminate against the intelligentialy challenged?

What happens if we reach the point when the service you receive somewhere is not acceptable by regular standards because the adaptations made to accomodate someone who wouldn't normally be able to do the job interfere with the customer's part in the proceding/with the service provided?

Just playing devil's advocate here, but that said there are cases when sometimes I wonder that there must be a more appropriate/accessible job that is just as valid that the person in question could do. It's not quite at the point where quadraplegics are employed as porters offering a carry-your-own style of service, but could it happen?

In shock news It's not politically correct to say politically correct anymore......
It's now 'socially acceptable'
errr.... scratch that, its now ethically suitable wink

Dubya?

Howabout plausible denial?

Atheists for many years have been using the C .E instead of A.D to denote a year . agree the zero referance relates to the birth if christ but we have to use something *a date in history * that most poeple can refer to wether of not christ is a real of fictional charactor the date of birth remains the same.


Many discriptions we use that are considered politically correct are wrong in terms of the correct definition example NATIVE AMERICAN for those decending from the oringinal tribes that inhabited america .

dictionary definition of Native.. belonging to a place by birth ... so everybody born here is a native
the correct tern should be native indian .

Another is AFICAN ANERICAN if a white person is born in south africa or any other country with in the continent of africaand now a resident of america he/she and desendants are not classed as african americans even though by strict d efinition they are .

In real estate we came across a few new political correct terms that once again stretched the bounderies of common sence to tooady to the political correct crowd who have nothing better in life to do than to redefine words so as to (satify) a segment of the population who where not complaining in the frst place.

same example of that .

DISCRIPTION OF A HOME FOR SELL .

the * main bedroom * must not be discriped as *the master bedroom * as this can be contrudes as a sexist term .

the view from the window must not be discriped as *overlooking a park * as a blind person might be offended .


the term * mother in law suite * must be dropped can be offensive to gays ,and other alternative lifestyles .

the term * his and her closets * can also be taken as offence to by same sex couples .




these terms where also discouraged

Family area (discribe family? ) 8walking and bike trials*inconsiderate for those in wheel chairs .

IMO those folks eho keep finding alternative words/phrases to those already in common use need to go get a life .

It made me laugh when a committee was formed to help "normalise" the annual tradition of setting up a big Christmas tree in the lounge of our Memorial Union building, which has happened since....whenever.

The name of the committee?

"Celebrating Holidays in a World of Difference Committee"

I think they are worried that Christmas trees might forcefully convert people to Christianity or something.

roll

"Convert or face the wrath of my mighty falling needles!"

/World Of Indifference Committee here

Thing is, most uber-christians I know get all uppity about Santa and Christmas trees anyway. There always tying to slip a donkey and the baby Jesus in there somewhere.

JohnA,

The people known as Native Americans have no connection with India, They might be considered as Indiginous Americans, although I have no problem with Native Americans, everyone knows who it refers to.

Its funny, but I have no problem with switching A.D. to C.E., A.D. is a Christian designation and Christians are less than half the world population, Why should their version reign over a more general one.

The banning of “Mate” was by a mid level civil servant and was overturned in less than a day.

I am still in conflict about the usage of the term “terrorist”, and I offer the following as a Devil’s Advocate.

A country may be part of a group, may be part of several groups. The UK is part of the Anglo Saxon group of countries, it is also considered to be part of the group of Christian countries. Even though, say France and England would be at war with each other, they would both participate in crusades as members of the Christian group. We have moved on from the time when we would engage in a crusade. We have, haven’t we? The Moslem countries have not moved on, they still feel part of a group. So when we attack a Moslem country, many other Moslems feel that they have been attacked. Many people feel that when their own Moslem countries don’t assist the attacked country, their honour forces them to do so individually. (How many Brits and Americans went to fight against Franco, they are heroes in their own countries)

When we went to war with a Moslem country, we should have known that there would be Moslems around the world who would feel that the war was also against them. And so they fight back, but because their delivery systems are suicide bombers instead of planes dropping huge bombs and helicopters firing rockets, and tanks with massive firepower, killing lots of people, they are criminals and terrorists.

As I said, this is one side (probably the unpopular one) of the discussion that goes on in my head.

Or course they dontand i didnt suggest they did the aboriginal tribes of north america are known as *indians * they are not related in any way to the inhabitants of the country known as india .

cus you KNOW who it refers to doesnt make it technically correct .

there are many many sites easily obtainable on the net that discuss thses tribes as a subject, all of them use the words* north american indian* when discribing them are you saying they are NOT politically correct and only your opinion is the valid one .

this i just one i have on hand


http://anglicanhistory.org/canada/dayspring/04.html

Deleted repeat post text.

Ok - who stole the "Delete Post" button ?

Regarding "native Americans", how can you collectively call them anything when the differing tribes want to be known in varying ways?

For example, around where I live, the Confederated Tribes like to be known as American Indians, which is how we refer to them and they describe themselves, yet apparently this might upset other "original descendents of the Asian tribes that sailed across the Pacific or crossed the ice bridge between Siberia and Alaska".

I think my title is far catchier and way more accurate than anyone else's

wink

Or as we refer to them in Vegas

"Casino or Convenience?"

/so going to burn for that mrgreen