Thursday, September 23, 2004

   This is stuff that highly irks me:
This is an actual exerpt of a book entitled THE LANGUAGE POLICE. These are banned words or phrases that are not supposed to be found in textbooks and/or tests for K - 12 students. (aka political correctness) These are the ones that really get my goat.

^Blind, the (bannned as offensive; replace with "people who are blind")
^Adam and Eve (replace with "Eve and Adam," to demonstrate that males do not take priority over females)
^Fraternize (banned as sexist) [how is this word sexist, will somebody please explain this to me?]
^Heiress (banned as sexist; replace with "heir") [um, Dudes, heiress is the term directed specifically to a women because it is the femine form. It is phsyically impossible for a woman to be an heir, if she was an heir she wouldn't have a second "X" chromosome but a "Y" chromosome.]
^Heroine (banned as sexist; replace with "hero") [see above comment on "heiress."]
^Bookworm (banned as offensive; replace with "intellectual") [excuse me, just because you read a lot does not make you an intellectual. I am a Bookworm and darn proud of it, and I'm not an intellectual. I'm sorry, I'm just not smart enough to fit that definition.)
^Man of war (banned as sexist; replace with "warship") [sorry, that's what they're called. Idiots. Oh yeah, a Man of War is also the name of a fish, so what are you going to call the fish to make sure it isn't offended?)
^Paraplegic (banned as offensive; replace with "person with paraplegia") [ummm, what's the difference?]
^Pagan (banned as ethnocentric when referring to religion; replace with "nonbeliever")
^Slave (replace whenever possible with "enslaved person") [again, what's the difference?]
^Sufferer of cerebral palsy (banned as offensive; replace with "person who has loss of muscle control") [why aren't we suppose to use the medical term?]
^Tomboy (banned as sexist) [um, no. I'm a Tomboy]

And here it is, the crowning glory:
^Snowman (banned; replace with "snow person")

Excuse me Diane Ravitch (author of THE LANGUAGE POLICE which all these terms are excerpted from) but I think you have way too much free time on your hands dearie and need to get out in the real world more.
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