Following is a link to an item in today’s online edition of The Toronto Sun: http://www.torontosun.com/2012/09/11/durham-region-teachers-given-language-guidelines.
I don’t know what to say about this item other than to quote Arte Johnson from Laugh-in: “verry interesting, but shtupid”. I mean seriously, have you heard of anything more ridiculous than some of the instructions in this manual? Not referring to someone from Seoul as “Korean”. Teachers are encouraged to call them “someone from Korea”. I’m surprised they even allowed that much and not suggested they be called “Asian”.
And avoiding use of words that contain the word “man”, such as “mankind” also seems more than a little PC. Such a restriction would have put a major crimp in a discussion of one of my favourite groups of the late sixties/early seventies – Manfred Mann. I suppose I’d have had to refer to them as “Personfred Person”. What utter nonsense.
Durham District School Board is, to be politically correct, out of their ever-loving minds collectively trying to enforce this. Let’s look at the real world for a minute. Children will hear terms like Korean, or Pakistani (to use examples from the article) or worse at home, or at their friends or wherever they happen to be. They will hear “mailman” and “policeman” just about everywhere. Everywhere that is, except in the classroom. And that will continue until and unless the parents of every child in the school system are given a copy of this manual. And that will have just the opposite effect of what the Board wants. Rather than encourage parents to follow the suggestions, I suspect the common reaction will be “WTF is this bull?” And there will be a firestorm of protest and the Board will quietly scrap the manual.
Once again, political correctness is trying to change the English language as it has been used for generations. Or should I stop being PC here and say that once again, someone is trying to censor the language we use.
To my followers and readers, enjoy your week and remember to hug an artist, we need love too. (And I hope saying that is very, very politically incorrect).
Cat.
catsworld1 