🚀 go-pugleaf

geoffm@netcom.com (Geoff Miller) writes:

>You're missing the point.  Whether or not PC expressions such as "visually 
>impaired" or "developmentally disabled" are semantically inadequate isn't
>the issue.  The issue is the necessity and propriety of consciously replacing
>existing terms with new ones, as part of an attempt as social engineering,
>or to avoid causing offense when people have no valid reason to be offended
>in the first place -- by words and expressions which are neutrally descriptive.

Admittedly, most of these efforts to junk existing terms are annoying.
Usually, the only reason to do this is that the terms have a pejorative
connotation, and the only reason they have it is that whatever's being
described is pejorative. Shit, by any other name, still stinks, being
deaf is not as good as being able to hear, and if the mentally retarded
are called "developmentally disabled," they are still stupid. 
 
However, there are other terms that have been (or are in the process of
being) scrapped because they have secondary, inappropriate meanings. For
example, there's "obese," which implies that a fat person automatically
has a medical problem, or "Jewess," which implies that the female in
question isn't to be taken seriously. Then there are all those words which
say that police and fire critters always have a dick.

Bob Christ told me about the lady sheriff of Boulder Creek. This woman
does a difficult job extremely well. She lays her life on the line in
ways you or I couldn't even begin to imagine. I'd just as soon not
use a word which implies she doesn't exist. 

If that's "social engineering," so be it.

Lenore Levine
 
-- 
"...speaking of buying, there are few things as fun as selling
a bag of oregano to a frat boy."          -- Ken Strayhorn, Jr.