Politically Correct


Political correctness is a field of study in itself. I'll begin this category with a few words that are both politically-incorrect and are closely related to hypercorrectness.

Black English example: Using "do" in the third person singular is not irregular because it drops the archaic "-es" inflection.

Ross Perot said "you people" and African Americans took it offensively.

The Latin and Spanish for the word black are "niger" and "Negro." The English pronunciation has a soft "g" for the name of the country or river "Niger." The Latin and Spanish retained the hard "g" and these words are the root of the offensive N-word. It's ironic that a word that has such an offensive meaning is used comradely among blacks (a variant is "nigga").

"Crippled" is offensive to the disabled.

"Dumb" is offensive to someone who cannot speak.

I met a DJ who seemed to believe that all language should be "cynically-correct." Educators tend to lean to the "liberally-correct" philosophy. Some "conservative-correct" religions see no difference between religion and politics.

I mentioned to an educator that I wondered where society got the idea that property owners are responsible for the cost of educating other people's kids. She responded that that was just my opinion. I exclaimed, "Wait a minute! It may be someone's opinion as to who's responsible, but unless I read my last tax bill incorrectly, it's a fact that I'm paying to educate other people's kids."