It's Official
- I Am A Racist
Posted by TheFallen on May
16, 2002 Posters to this forum in the UK will be aware of this
story, since it's made national news media, but clearly the politically correct
lobby has gone stark staring mad.
Apparently, the term "nitty gritty" has been
deemed by official and governmental bodies to be both offensive and racist, since
they have decided that it originates from sailors' slang to describe the debris
in the bottom of a slavers' ship. It's therefore being struck from official language.
The archaic term "good egg" has also been declared racist, just in case it's derived
from Cockney rhyming slang - which I bet it's not. It's also true that in certain
more "right on" councils, employees are not allowed to take their coffee black
or white - just with or without milk.
I remember chuckling (but with some sadness)
at the story someone posted here about some US official having to resign because
he'd described a budget as "niggardly", and was instantly accused of racism. I
thought it could never happen here in the UK with our less litigious culture.
Nevertheless, it is - it's almost as if there's some earnest bevy of people somewhere
just desperately trying to become offended by any and every term, and if they
can dredge up even the most unlikely of references, out come the pruning shears
and another expression or two is lopped off the English language tree.
English
is a constantly evolving and rich language, and I'm sure most right-thinking people
are more than capable of deciding for themselves what is or isn't racist, without
having some Big Brother organisation wringing its bleeding heart hands and censoring
at every turn, simply for fear of being seen as politically incorrect.
Frankly,
I despair.
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