Language and Taboo
Political Correctness: the avoidance of terms that denigrate disadvantaged groups; but the term is not usually neutral.
“The movement for politically correct language began with gender, and that remains the most important area, for two reasons. For most people, sexual politics is more important than racial politics. It is possible (depending of course on where one lives and who one mixes with) to avoid much contact with people of another race; but it is obviously impossible not to encounter the other sex. And as well as this, gender, as we shall now see, lies at the heart of language. English has freed itself fom the gender distinctions that other European languages have retained: in French the sun is masculine and the mood feminine, in German it’s the other way round. We don’t need to worry our heads about such differences: for us sun and moon are both it. But though we may have shed grammatical gender, we still have plenty of other ways in which gender impinges on language.”
Lerner Laurence, You can't say that! English Usage Today, Cambridge, 2007, pp 172
“The movement for politically correct language began with gender, and that remains the most important area, for two reasons. For most people, sexual politics is more important than racial politics. It is possible (depending of course on where one lives and who one mixes with) to avoid much contact with people of another race; but it is obviously impossible not to encounter the other sex. And as well as this, gender, as we shall now see, lies at the heart of language. English has freed itself fom the gender distinctions that other European languages have retained: in French the sun is masculine and the mood feminine, in German it’s the other way round. We don’t need to worry our heads about such differences: for us sun and moon are both it. But though we may have shed grammatical gender, we still have plenty of other ways in which gender impinges on language.”
Lerner Laurence, You can't say that! English Usage Today, Cambridge, 2007, pp 172
Politically Incorrect Commercials
Should these commercials have been banned from TV?
Has the English-speaking culture become hypersensitive or is wariness over being PC okay?
Should these commercials have been banned from TV?
Has the English-speaking culture become hypersensitive or is wariness over being PC okay?
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Are we, as a culture, too sensitive?
Is the U.S. too politically correct?
Is the U.S. too politically correct?
Anderson Cooper - Dyngus Day and pussy
willow branches
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"Who Can Say 'Nigger'? And Other Considerations"
Randall L. Kennedy
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, No. 26. (Winter, 1999-2000), pp. 86-96.
Click HERE to access the article.