There’s really no reason to expect that every person, or groups of people, would agree on what they prefer to be called.
If it’s one person asking to be called X and not Y, then it’s simple. You call them X. The problem comes when people - like those students in the OP - try to turn this into a general rule. Frequently we find most other people don’t care, or actually prefer to be called Y. But this does stop the political correctness fans from earnestly pushing their rules, and shaming anyone who does not comply. I have even seen people told they are not allowed to call themselves Y, which is the opposite of what the rule should be.
As for erring on the side of caution, this is only true if you think there is zero cost to political correctness, which is exactly the false belief I have spent this entire thread arguing against. Sometimes the benefits are high and the costs are low, and we should change the language. Other times it is the other way around. Yet by ignoring the costs, you would argue that we should always make the change, no matter how slight the benefit.
This is the kind of loophole you could drive a bus through. Anyone can claim the person they dislike was being an asshole and therefore the teasing is justified. If you’re going to make a rule, then have the same rule for your enemies as for your friends.
It is 100% political correctness: her political opinions are not correct according to the power structure, so her job is jeopardized.
But your response is both illuminating and typical of people who complain about political correctness. What they really mean is something entirely different from what the term suggests.
I actually considered widening the discussion to politically incorrect opinions as well as politically incorrect terminology, but I didn’t want to turn it into another discussion of cancel culture.
You know my position on that, and I’m not interested in having another debate with people who pretend it’s not a problem. Has seeing a radical progressive suffer from ‘consequence culture’ made you see things differently?
I don’t think that “politically incorrect opinions” is a useful phrase even though I know what you mean and don’t entirely disagree. “Political incorrectness” almost always means terminology.
You can’t win. If I’d brought up people punished for their opinions, then I’d have posters saying that’s not what political correctness means and I’m trying to equate two different things. But when someone on the other side of the argument equates them, somehow it’s me getting the term wrong.
What do you think is a better description than ‘politically incorrect opinions’?
Hell, the sheer volume of food consumed by many Americans in a single sitting leaves many non-Americans speechless.
I recall having a meal with some colleagues and one particular guy was an obese giant of a man with a failing heart and high blood pressure. He ordered a porter house the size of his head. One of the people attending brought a couple of exchange students from Germany she was hosting. They were visibly horrified when they put the plate in front of this guy. Even he noticed them staring in horror and commented, “Look at the ugly American!”, and laughed. I imagine it’s a story they told more than once when they got home.
Of course not. But when a significant proportion find a word offensive it’s prudent to find another term. And I have linked several cites which says that there is such a proportion. And indeed the one counter-cite (the census comments) also concedes this.
Or, you know what, let me try to find a common ground here, because this can go on forever.
If it does prove to be the case that the number of Romani that mind the term “gypsy” is less than 10%, say, then sure perhaps “gypsy” can be the standard term for them and we’re all gravy. The original point I was arguing against in this thread was scoffing at the very notion of “gypsy” being unacceptable and the suggestion that it was only white people (i.e. not Romani) that ever wanted to disfavor that word.
Regardless what position we take on this, we can agree it’s somewhat complicated and disagree with such a glib framing, right?
I just don’t think you’ve made a good case about the costs.
You just keep making allusions to words changing all the time and leaving people confused or whatever. I’m not so young myself – I’m 42 – but no I don’t share this feeling at all.
Let me think about which words in my entire lifetime have gone out of favor:
Slave (outside of discussing actual slavery)
Gypsy (it was always a slur in my lifetime, but previously I did not know alternative terms like “traveler” or Romani / Roma)
Oriental (was still acceptable in British English, now better to use “East Asian”)
Police woman etc (I’m aware genderless terms like “police officer” are better now, but I still hear gendered terms all the time, doesn’t seem to be a big deal)
Gay, as an adjective for “poor”
…and I am genuinely struggling to think of any other examples. Words like “Golliwog” were almost exclusively used as slurs in my lifetime, and certainly weren’t part of my vocabulary. “Niggardly” is a silly game where the word was extremely rare and mostly used in print, then became famous as a word the “PC police” was prohibiting because they are teh dumz.
Help me to understand the harm, because it’s looking like about a word a decade at this point.
Let’s see. We’ve got the words for various races that are constantly being updated; coloured is right out (though I still hear older people say it), but should you say black, or ‘people of colour’, or BIPOC, or is that frowned on now too? Does Black need to be capitalised? Is Caucasian in or out? And what about BAME? How do we distinguish between people with origins in the Indian subcontinent and those with origins in China, Japan, Vietnam etc if they are all called Asian? Then there are other pitfalls. Without thinking I say that one of my nieces is a ‘little monkey’; should I avoid saying it about the other because she’s mixed-race? Perhaps I had better err on the side of caution, but then I am treating them differently. Even the words we all agree on are dangerous. Everyone knows you should never ever ever call anyone the n-word, unless perhaps you are black yourself. But now we see people getting in trouble for things like reading Huckleberry Finn aloud in class, or a lecturer discussing a court case that references it, or even the example above where a student got upset at seeing the Bowdlerised version in an exam. And what about old media that uses out of date terms (or in the case of the Dr Seuss books, racist illustrations)? Does it get updated? Will the copyright owners stop publishing old favourites? It’s not something you can get in trouble for, but it’s definitely something people get upset about.
And that’s just race. Moving on to disability; handicapped is bad, saying someone ‘suffers from’ X is bad, ‘wheelchair-bound’ is bad: say ‘wheelchair user’. Obviously retarded is offensive, but I think mentally disabled is now frowned upon too. What’s the current approved term, ‘person with a learning disability’? That brings us to ‘person first language’. You must no longer say ‘diabetic’, but ‘person with diabetes’, you must no longer say ‘autistic’ but ‘person with autism’ (except that this was created by well-meaning people as a general rule, and a decent proportion of the people concerned actually prefer to be called ‘autistic’. The same applies to Deaf, and make sure you remember when to capitalise it and when not to.) Oh, and you must also remember to say ‘Down syndrome’ rather than ‘Down’s syndrome’ - I don’t know why.
Same thing with terms relating to gender and LGBTQ+.
And don’t forget microaggressions. Even if you follow all the lists of words and phrases to avoid, you can still commit microaggressions, and you better not try to defend yourself, either. The people making the rules have decided that intent doesn’t matter (at least when it’s convenient to them), and trying to defend yourself is in itself a microaggression.
You never replied to my other post, @RitterSport. If someone else gets upset over some word or phrasing that I think is innocuous, should I dismiss their feelings, or say they need to be better educated or just toughen up? Or should I try to understand, and take them seriously?
I think you would say the latter. That’s what I was taught to do. But I took the lesson to heart; I decided I should do the same with people who are unhappy over political correctness, and I found I sympathised with them too.
Again, I’m 42 years old. If “colored” was ever acceptable in my lifetime, I must have been an infant at the time. Again, I’m not disputing that no words have become disfavored just that it’s hardly a common occurrence as you are suggesting.
Black is still fine, people of color is the most approved term, I haven’t heard of BIPOC.
Oh my god, you’re right, this is so serious.
Not heard of any issues with Caucasian, and I’ve never even heard of BAME but I assume it’s something like Black, Asian, Middle East?
Note that this pitfall would exist regardless of PC or whatever. Historically, most Asian immigrants to the UK were from the Indian subcontinent, so “Asian” in the UK was often shorthand for Indian / Pakistani / Bangladeshi. However, with increasing numbers of tourists in particular from Japan, China and Korea, and bearing in mind the different connotations of “Asian” in American English, which we get a lot of exposure to, the language inevitably was going to shift.
So, now we say “East Asian” or “South Asian” when we want to make a distinction, and “Asian” refers to, well, anyone from Asia.
And I’ll stop there for now. Like I say, I think you’re scrambling around pretty hard to find examples, It’s just not as big a problem as you’re making it out to be; somehow I have avoided this minefield without even needing to give it a second thought.
