I pride myself on being politically incorrect, ESPECIALLY if i'm having a private conversation with someone and someone who overhears me may get offended. Honestly, 2000 years ago you'd be lucky if someone didn't run you through witht heir sword, so how about a society-wide can of harden up, less crying and more beer-getting woman!

I also park in 'parents with prams' spaces in carparks (in australia for some reason people who can't keep their legs shut get special parking privs, i'm all for having kids, but it doesn't entitle you to a parking spot) and since it's not enforced by anything other than following the rules blindly like sheep i get away with it.

We don't have those here, but we do have disabled parking spaces. Doesn't stop me from parking in them. I mean, I'm emotionally crippled, right?

I wouldn't say anything that I know will piss somebody unless it's too silly. I am not calling somebody "hair challenged" because he's bald. I'll just shut up and don't say it or if I have to point out he's bald I'd say the dreaded word. Same for short people, tall people, etc... It's the meaning what is offensive, not the words itself. Anything else is just being stupid. And I don't care if people say Merry christmas. What matters is that they're wishing you good things, not the way they do it

One of my sociology teachers once informed us that the term "political correctness" originated from the Marxist/Maoist/Stalinist style governments. I thought this was an intriguing notion, so I looked it up. It turns out that it's true, but not in the sense we mean it today.

Originally if you said something that was pro-State, it was considered politically correct. If you said something against your government, it wasn't. I like that definition better being that it's much more precise and means what the term implies.


I'm basically going to just echo most of the other people. There are some things you don't say to people you don't know well enough to be certain that they won't be offended. These being the fairly universal racial/ethnic/gender slurs. These are also nouns that can function as expletives, which disambiguates things like the C-word (I'm assuming the forums isn't going to let me actually say it) and calling a female waiter a waiter, instead of a server or waitperson (Seriously? A waitperson?)

So I say yes, show some basic respect and common courtesy. No, don't be retarded and start misspelling "womyn" so that women can have a collective noun that doesn't include the word "men."

Political correctness is about stereotypes, not about "offending people."

Universities, and Media watch groups are the ones who pushed the idea of political correctness, not politicians.

The basic idea, is that if you use language a certain way, it affects the way people think about things. I remember a "politically correct" textbook that would use examples of Old people on Surfboards, and Children working in offices just to break age stereotypes.

But even with the emphasis on stereotypes, the end goal is still not to offend those who fall under that stereotype. Right?

Edit: Or rather to prevent the "incorrect thinking" that in theory results from using stereotypes. Which I guess is substantially different, but I'd still disagree with PCness in that case. Attempts to control thinking are BAAAD.

No, the goal is to realize that stereotypes aren't a reflection of reality. You can't make judgments about people based on stereotypes. Using non PC language, is often a case of you making comments about a person or thing based on the stereotypes. (i.e. "nappy haired hoes", or "in god we trust", "plays basketball like a cripple")

The idea is to get people looking beyond stereotypes, and to the point where they don't use stereotypes in language or thought.

So "Midget" is a stereotype? How d'you work that out? Midget means "Short person" and is considered to not be "Politically correct". There aren't any implications associated with it other than... well, being short. And perhaps being able to headbutt someone in the crotch, but that's another matter.

Political Correctness means keeping language in your speech that might cause offence to one person or another to a bare minimum. Stereotypes may come under that, but they are not its definition, or acquired meaning.

Right, exactly correct.

However, "attempts to control thinking" are exactly what good books are supposed to do! As are political arguments, and debate.

PCness is just another form of debate pushed upon a public with access to Media/Academia.

PCness, I think has its place, and its done quite a lot of good things for "race relations" in America, but its also sometimes abused. .

...Well not just race relations, its also done some good for people with physical handicaps, but its done terrible things, imo, to Self esteem and self perception.

"midge definition
n.
1. Any of various gnatlike flies of the family Chironomidae, found worldwide and frequently occurring in swarms near ponds and lakes.
2. Any of various similar dipteran insects, such as the biting midges of the family Ceratopogonidae.
3. A little person.
"

Thats where the word midget comes from.

I assume that the stereotype being objected to, is that short people are any "less" of a person, or are in anyway like annoying insects.

I'm guessing also, it has something to do with Midgets being used and advertised as such in Circuses doing "funny things", such as headbutting a person in the crotch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_cor...guistic_concept

Thats the wiki article on it.

edit: Ok, based on the comments page of the wiki article, there isn't really any agreed upon meaning or purpose of the phrase.

It does appear to be agreed upon however, that the term was mostly created/used for people to attack "Leftist" ideology, especially in America.

Which is why the whole argument is moot - Political correctness is a myth, much like intellectual property - it's an unhelpful, misguiding umbrella term that doesn't help classify or talk about the things that come under it. It can be applied both to ridiculous euphemisms (Differently-abled rather than disabled; I can tell you, were I on a wheelchair, I would put blades on my wheels just to run over anyone who says anything like that; a couple years ago, disabled was the appropriate way of talking about cripples!) and to consciousness-raising exercises (Phrases that should "grate" when we hear them, like "man" in a context where "person" is more appropriate, or "Christian child" instead of "child of Christian parents.")

disabled is to include people who need special treatment to function, but are not disfunctional in their limbs. (i.e. people with blood clotting issues). Differently-abled is to include the people who need special treatment in cases of emergency, but don't need special treatment to function. (i.e. IBS)

The title changes are to include more people into categories so as not to create stereotypes based on need. (i.e., just because I have wheelchair access parking, doesn't mean I can't walk properly. It just means I need to be able to get to my car quickly, if needed)

And its not a myth, its a theory with long historical practice at this point. A theory that it turns out, works very very well.

Noooo. Good books and debate attempt to influence or change your thinking, usually through rational argument or by encouraging you to actually reconsider your stances. Propaganda attempts to control your thinking. Brainwashing is an attempt to control your thinking. Political correctness attempts to control your thinking using the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (in either strong or weak form, really).

Encouraging discourse is good. Debate is good. Thinking is good. Attempting to manipulate thoughts through the subconscious is at the very least not productive.

brainwashing normally gets you to act without thinking. I'm not sure what you mean by productive, but it seems to work pretty darn well. As far as I can tell, the only different between propaganda and a persuasive argument is "truth"

In spanish, in general, the plural of a noun is the plural of the masculine form. As that's not politically anymore, instead of saying "the parents of those children/kids over there" you'd have to say "the fathers, mothers and legal tutors or tutoresses responsable of the girls and boys, young adult females and young adult males over there..."

Yeah, school letters are starting to look like that.

You're got to be ing kidding me. At that sort of extreme, wouldn't the entirety of any gendered language be politically incorrect, i.e. someone gets pissed that, for example, chairs might be female, while faeries are all male?

INSANE!!!

I thought people were smart enough to recognize the difference between grammar and actual people.

You'd think it would be easier to just change spanish gramar so it doesn't have gender at all.

Do they have a neutral gender, though? I mean, you can understand English if someone uses 'it' for 'he/she' and such, it just sounds funny. I'm not sure that's possible in romance languages.

I know that it is not possible in Hebrew.

Although in Hebrew many people from America just use the "male" form of the word, and tend to ignore the usage of the female forms, unless it's important.

I remember walking around being worried to talk to people directly, on the off chance that I would insult them by using the wrong verb form.