I am getting thoroughly fed up with the constant corruption of my language (English - my native language, in which I have three separate qualifications) by the woke-brigade.
Words and phrases that are established parts of English are constantly being
given new meanings in the name of political correctness. In some cases this is not a problem, but in many it creates ambiguity, and even means that some things can no longer be used
with their original meanings, for fear of offending someone (such as the case of the Black
Bitch pub in Scotland).
- I often hear people referred to as "The Chair" of some committee, whereas the correct label is either "Chairman", "Chairwoman" or "Chair-person"; the Chair is the position that
person occupies, but never the person that occupies it. If you want to avoid accusations of sexism, use "Chair-person".
- There is such a lot of nonsense around personal pronouns. People seem to believe that they have the right to choose their personal pronouns, and get offended if people forget or
refuse to comply. Why? You did not get to choose your name (your parents did that) and you did not get to choose any nicknames that you have/had. "They/them" are popular choices; someone recently said to me that they (anonymous, so a correct usage
of "they") would be willing to refer to someone as "they" if that person shows proof of having multiple personalities; I think that is fair comment. If you insist on having
a gender neutral pronoun, invent a new one (English is very accommodating about the extension of the language with new words and loan-words from other languages).
- I have a right to be offended if someone accuses me for using the wrong job title for someone (e.g. stewardess, barmaid, hostess); offended because the criticism is a judgment of
my motives, and if you want to criticise my intent you had better have proof. I had a South African once tell me that the proper gender neutral term for waiter/waitress was
"waitron", and I have no problem having that added to the English language, but not OK with it being mandatory.
- Then there is the whole thing about PC terminology for people's ethnicity/skin-colour. Most (white) people find it totally inappropriate to
refer to someone as a "nigger"
(I would never do so in public), but it seems to be completely acceptable for African-Americans to use the word. Americans seem to have the idea that their PC words
are universal, but they are not (I have even heard of Americans wrongly referring to black Africans as African-Americans); for example, in South Africa "black" is the proper
word for a black African, whereas "coloured" is reserved for people of mixed race and for Indians/Pakistanis; Americans refer to "Native Americans", whereas Canadians insist that they
be called "First Nations". We were shocked when a new neighbour referred to their partner as "Eine Schwarze" (a black), only finding out later that in German this
means someone with black hair.
It is worth remembering that offence is in the ear of the listener, and not necessarily in the mind of the speaker.
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