Political correctness.

[PhantomWolf]

Having said that, some of the examples you give might not actually be part of a PC worldview. Shows such as Pop Idol deliberately choose people who can't sing because their public humiliation is entertainment.

It was less about the show allowing them on, I agree, that's for the entertainment. It's the fact that they actually get up there believing that they can in fact sing. No-one has been willing to tell them that they suck and suck really badly, so they get up and make an idiot of themselves on International TV. If someone had told them the truth "You can't sing, you can't even hold a tune" they might not have been trumatized by the later failure.

By the way, is the term "deferred success" really used in all seriousness?

Not being in the secondary system I can't speak to that, but it really would not surprise me. When I started we had "Competent" and "Not Yet Competent". "Competent" was changed to "Achieved" by NZQA because they felt that telling someone that they weren't competent was no longer appropriate.

 

[psionl0]

The term "politically correct" is highly offensive.

Maybe it is just the ultimate white male supremacist position.

You can still vilify white males to your heart's content (as long as you don't refer to their disabilities/sexual orientation/religion etc) presumably because they can take it. But you can't say anything that could even remotely be considered disparaging to any other group because presumably they are too fragile for that.

 

[Gazpacho]

It isn't merely about hurt feelings, psi.

 

[psionl0]

....and?

 

[Caustic Logic]

A. You still missed the point, which is, as Caustic Logic pointed out, this should never have happened in the first place!!

B. If you think this is a single isolated incidence of ignorance, then think again

1. University of Wisconsin, WI - Feb1999:
A junior English major and vice chairwoman of the Black Student Union complained when an English Lit. professor teaching the works of Henry Chaucer used the word niggardly.

2. Wilmington, NC - Feb 2002:
A fourth-grade teacher in was formally reprimanded for teaching the word and told to attend "sensitivity training" (more PC Crap). Said she used the word during a discussion about literary characters. A parent complained because it sounded like a racial slur. The teacher was made to apologise or lose her job.

3. Mendocino County, CA - May 2009:
A history teacher, who was wage bargaining on behalf of local schoolteachers, wrote a letter saying that the "tenor of the negotiation tactics of the district office has become increasingly negative and niggardly." Ten individuals in Mendocino County school stated that the teacher's comments were "racially charged and show a complete lack of respect and integrity toward the District Superintendent," who happens to be black. The history teacher sued the ten individuals for defamation, and the worst aspect of this is that the judge ignored over 200 years of English language teaching, and found for the school district. This is what I call PC gone mad!!!

4. Broward County, FL - Nov 2011:
A drug counsellor was fired (and another suspended) for using the word "niggardly" A junkie complained saying that the counsellor called him "niggardly dumb". The county's professional standards office found the workers, who are both white, engaged in "unprofessional, unethical and discriminatory" behaviour.

And these are just a few of the many.

All of these incidents would have been avoided if the officials involved had just looked in a *********** dictionary.

The most disturbing thing about the first three examples above is that they took place in places of education!! I expect better from such institutions.

That's a pretty big list for such an obscure word. Have the dates been checked to rule out copycat users and abusers of the word "niggardly"? I think, in fact, they're all later, and I suspect this is the case for some or all. Really - "miserly dumb," with "niggardly" inserted for miserly, directed at a black person (I presume)? Unprofessional, stupid, and likely attention-seeking. Oh boo hoo, I got in trouble for having too good a vocabulary but too little knowledge how to use it right." What you might illustrate here is that much of this alleged PC mental police state is about this one near-useless word, and that's a sign that the problem's really not so big, IMO. Dictionary, or thesaurus, or common sense, depending, should have been consulted in these cases.

 

[uke2se]

You could apply that to Flying High (a.k.a. Airplane) as well.

Also, Monty Pythons Flying Circus, Open All Hours, The Two Ronnies, The Benny Hill Show and The Kenny Everett Video Show. None them would stand a snowball's chance in hell of being made today. Instead we get the banal crap that network executives try to pass off on us as "comedy" , such as Friends, Ned & Stacy, Big Bang Theory and Glee.

Sorry, but this is utter BS. TV and movies are much rawer today.

 

[Gazpacho]

....and?

And what? You want me to repeat my earlier post? It's about political goals, such as the goal of rolling back white supremacy and male supremacy on the institutional and individual levels.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That's a pretty big list for such an obscure word. Have the dates been checked to rule out copycat users and abusers of the word "niggardly"? I think, in fact, they're all later, and I suspect this is the case for some or all. Really - "miserly dumb," with "niggardly" inserted for miserly, directed at a black person (I presume)? Unprofessional, stupid, and likely attention-seeking. Oh boo hoo, I got in trouble for having too good a vocabulary but too little knowledge how to use it right." What you might illustrate here is that much of this alleged PC mental police state is about this one near-useless word, and that's a sign that the problem's really not so big, IMO. Dictionary, or thesaurus, or common sense, depending, should have been consulted in these cases.

Yeah because it's only the one word that people are dumb over

 

[angrysoba]

Sorry, but this is utter BS. TV and movies are much rawer today.

Yeah, I can't really see what would make the Two Ronnies unmakeable today. My guess is that it would be if a) Ronnie Barker wasn't dead, b) there was a market for new ones c) It wasn't repeated on TV fairly regularly.

Much of the same is true with Monty Python. Graham Chapman's dead, so they can't really be on there now, and these days you could show Life of Brian at Christmas and Easter if you wanted to, whereas before there were threats to have them prosecuted for blasphemy

Benny Hill, dead. Open All Hours, again Ronnie Barker is deceased. Kenny Everett, pushing up daisies. I think in its time, Kenny Everett was seen as quite risque, but these days some of these programmes would be seen as quite tame.

And, as has been mentioned, there certainly are shows that buck the PC-label:

 

[smartcooky]

Not a good look coming from one who criticises others' poor English

You can blame the Firefox spell checker for that!

I'm normally a good speller, just a lousy typost typsit typist!

 

[smartcooky]

Yeah because it's only the one word that people are dumb over

That is a great example of PC gone mad

What do they expect?

Do they think "Master/Slave" is only written on the switches and panel of equipment. What about the handbooks and manuals, the wiring diagrams, the circuit diagrams, the instruction sheets, the block diagrams etc?

It reminds me of the joke about the school that refused to employ a new teacher.

The applicant, Guy Chapman, was told that his name contravened the school's gender neutrality policy, and that if he wanted his application to proceed, he would have to change him name to Person Personperson

 

[angrysoba]

It reminds me of the joke about the school that refused to employ a new teacher.

The applicant, Guy Chapman, was told that his name contravened the school's gender neutrality policy, and that if he wanted his application to proceed, he would have to change him name to Person Personperson

Was he the Personager of the Departwoment of Herstory?

 

[Gazpacho]

Do they think "Master/Slave" is only written on the switches and panel of equipment. What about the handbooks and manuals, the wiring diagrams, the circuit diagrams, the instruction sheets, the block diagrams etc?

What about them? Are they fixed, unalterable facts of nature? The county has a prerogative as a contract buyer to make its preferences known.

 

[kerikiwi]

I'm normally a good speller, just a lousy typost typsit typist!

I thought you were going to come up with being a lousy typshit

 

[smartcooky]

Sorry, but this is utter BS. TV and movies are much rawer taday.

More raw perhaps, but would they be allowed to include the racist overtones that these programmes used to incorporate, using such terminology as Wop, Wog, Darkie, Paki and Nig-nog, all of which were commonly used in The Two Ronnies.

Would this not be considered Politically Incorrect....


...and likely to have one of those mad Islamic terrorist clerics calling for a fatwā against the writers like they did against Salman Rushdie, author of the fiction novel "The Satanic Verses"?

And what about this one?



I think rules 1,3, 5 and 7 might cause a bit of a stir, and rule 2 certainly would.

 

[smartcooky]

I thought you were going to come up with being a lousy typshit

Damn! Missed a chance there.

What about them? Are they fixed, unalterable facts of nature? The county has a prerogative as a contract buyer to make its preferences known.

Do you have even the remotest idea of the huge cost involved in manpower (oh, sorry, its "personpower" isn't it?), time and resources of going back and retrospectively amending, altering then reprinting and distributing amendment pages for manuals and handbooks, and all because some dick-wads can't get over their own preciousness?

Was he the Personager of the Departwoment of Herstory?

Oh, sharp. Very sharp!!

 

[psionl0]

And what? You want me to repeat my earlier post? It's about political goals, such as the goal of rolling back white supremacy and male supremacy on the institutional and individual levels.

So that's what your word salad was about.

That might be the stated aim of PC but attempting to stamp out every thought that might be culturally insensitive (except those against SWMs) might (as I said) be reinforcing the concept of white male supremacy.

 

[smartcooky]

That's a pretty big list for such an obscure word. Have the dates been checked to rule out copycat users and abusers of the word "niggardly"? I think, in fact, they're all later, and I suspect this is the case for some or all. Really - "miserly dumb," with "niggardly" inserted for miserly, directed at a black person (I presume)? Unprofessional, stupid, and likely attention-seeking. Oh boo hoo, I got in trouble for having too good a vocabulary but too little knowledge how to use it right." What you might illustrate here is that much of this alleged PC mental police state is about this one near-useless word, and that's a sign that the problem's really not so big, IMO. Dictionary, or thesaurus, or common sense, depending, should have been consulted in these cases.

Its just one example I chose. There are many others

Master/Slave (as per Phantom Wolfs example)
Lynch
Flange
Black Sheep
Senior Citizen


And lot of others...

http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-pi.html


and some of the just make me want to roll around on the floor in fits of laughter

Criminals are not criminals any more the are behaviorally challenged.

Fat people arent fat anymore, they are now in an enlarged physical condition caused by a completely natural genetically-induced hormone imbalance.

Trailer Parks are now to be called Mobile Home Communities (I wonder what we will have to call "Trailer Trash" now - "Mobile Home Refuse" perhaps?

 

[Gazpacho]

Do you have even the remotest idea of the huge cost involved in manpower (oh, sorry, its "personpower" isn't it?), time and resources of going back and retrospectively amending, altering then reprinting and distributing amendment pages for manuals and handbooks, and all because some dick-wads can't get over their own preciousness?

The LA County memo was a statement of policy and request. It doesn't require retrospective anything, although contractors could hypothetically have to justify a refusal later on (you know, in terms of cost). And frankly, there's a degree of "preciousness" in the position that the language must not be changed from what you grew up with, regardless of the implications for someone else. That cuts both ways.

 

[Jerrymander]

I think of books like "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Evolution" ect. You know a term its good when its used like that.