“Master” bedroom is heading for the scrap heap — ostensibly because it reminded some lunkheads of slavery(!) — joining other words and terms that the PC a/k/a woke have imagined to be offensive.
Such as, well, “politically correct” itself. That’s under fire.
Also “lame,” “gyp,” “retarded,” “colored,” “crazy,” “illegal,” and “exotic,” among others listed in a piece on Mashable (whatever that is).
You can click on the link to find out why they are deemed offensive. Whatever they say, remember this: Once you control the language, the next step is to control thought. It is important to not give in.
Not long ago I did a column on the 11 pages of words and terms that the Centers for Disease Control thought should be erased from the language. It came as a surprise to me to learn that policing the language came under its authority.
The words and phrases included “disabled,” “drug addicts,” “smokers,” “underserved,” “homeless people,” “poor people,” “foreign born,” and so on. The list is tiresome. You can follow the above link for more, while I throw up experience digestive difficulty.
The busybodies are indefatigable, but the goody-goodies are missing a few.
If you get your panties in a knot over “master,” how can Congress permit the title “whip,” which actually means beating people into going along with the leadership? No slavery imagery there? “Whip is OK (so far), but the House of Representatives recently declared that all official language should be gender-neutral, thus eliminating offensive terms such as mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle. Those words all smack of cisgender and nuclear families. Ugh!
If it isn’t gone already, “blackmail” should be replaced.
And, really, how racist is it that wedding dresses are white? I can hardly believe Black brides are so browbeaten as to wear them.
Don’t they understand that white = purity and Black = evil?
Well, maybe not so much after the smash movie “Black Panther.” That movie endorsed “Black is beautiful.” So do Beyonce, Denzel, Kerry, and Tyrese.
There are a lot of words starting with Black, and many do have negative connotations. (On the other hand, “whitewash” and “white flag” have negative connotations. Odd.)
Blacklist, blackjack, blackheads, black fly, blackout, and so on.
Do these refer to race, or to the ancient, superstitious fear of the dark?
You can decide, and you can suggest additions to the list of words we ought to banish.
[To be clear, I oppose banning words. This is satire.]
On a slightly less serious(?) note, there are words and phrases that some people would like to push out the door because they are cliche. The website inc.com provided some.
These include “circle back” (looking at you, Jen Psaki), “think outside the box,” “low hanging fruit,” “take it to the next level,” “the view from 35,000 feet.”
A recent poll came up with dozens more cringeworthy expressions, including:
“Give 110 percent,” “hammer it out,” “heavy lifting,” “throw them under the bus,” “pushing the envelope,” “win-win situation,” “blue-sky thinking,” “synergy”, “going forward,” “let’s ballpark this,” “there’s no I in team,” “back to the drawing board,” “paradigm shift,” “elephant in the room,” “raise the bar,” “skin in the game,” “I’ll loop you in.”
I’m sure there are more, but I’m not going to drill down into this because it is what it is.
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