What are your thoughts on "political correctness"?

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I multi-quoted & responded to several people. That was not intended for you



That was my response to skilpaddle's "using the word is excessively PC" thing.

The attempts at censorship are from politically correct busybodies trying to force their view of what is proper on everyone. If they would mind their own business, then the censorship would not exist.

Statements that masculine words are used to mean gender neutral often come weighted with a lot of rationalization. Your reaction is somewhat emotional, but accurate. It is not really accurate to claim that "mankind" is really an inclusive word that refers to men and women.

This notion of male as gender neutral default feeds the idea of female as "other." It is also a relatively recent linguistic development (1800s I think).

I know what you meant. Europe is not a continent. It is simply a peninsula of Asia. Europeans adopted the old greek concepts and applied it to thsemselves to say that 'western civ is better' and had the power to declare their peninsula to be a separate continent when it is simply part of asia. There was not a geographic basis on declaring Europe to be a continent, there was just a cultural impetus. That is why people use the term 'Eurasia' more often to describe the entire landmass.

Regarding Russians - a good portion (prolly a majority) of slavic Russians as well as related peoples Belarusian and Ukrainians live in "European" Russia - west of the Ural mountains. Does that make Russian culture and civilization 'European'? No. Russia also has inherited influences and cultures from the Mongols and Turks. A large portion of 'Russians' east of the Ural mountains are Russianized Turkified Mongols called 'Tatars'. Many look the same as Russians from a look, but many still speak their Turkic languages.

Are Russians 'asian' now?

Hence my statement that the concept of 'Europe' was politically corect for the white europeans of that time who even considered fellow white people like Russians to be 'asiatic' (see Nazi German propaganda)

It was politically correct in the first place for white europeans to make such differences - such as the concept of 'Europe'. Why is it bad if East Asians or South Asians do the same thing themselves?

Most Arabs (defined here as people who speak Arabic) are in Africa actually. Said author was referring to Indonesia & Malaysia, which are muslim countries that few in the US remember of or notice. That was the author's point. He probably also meant Central Asian turks.

About the last point: The author was making an important point that the most populous Muslim countries are: Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Malaysia and the Southern Philipines are also mostly Muslim. These countries are East Asian. But in making that point he blundered and implied that arabs are not asian. The Arabian peninsula is in asia. But yes most of the arab world is in north africa.

Russia west of the Urals could be viewed as "the mother country", and Russia east of the urals as the "colonies". So ethnic Russians living in Vladivistok are still 'europeans' in the way the whites in kenya are viewed as 'europeans' even though they live thousands of miles from European Russia.

But I agree that it is absurd to think of "europe' as a continent unto itsself. At best its a 'subcontinent' like the Indian subcontinent.

The reality is, though, that Europe is historically defined to be a continent. Attempts to redefine it so that Europe is not a continent is likely to lead to confusion.

A continent is defined to be "Any of the world's main continuous expanses of land (Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America)." By that definition, there is Europe and Asia could certainly be combined into being a continent, but because of the historical use of the term, Europe and Asia are two separate continents.

If you want to define them to be one of something, define them as the Europe-Asia Land Mass or something like that.

The term 'eurasia' has been used for a long time for europe and asia combined.


There is a funny postscript coming from the frontiers of geology.

When Pangea broke up hundreds of millions of years ago Europe (pretty much as its traditionally defined- with eurpean russia) was indeed a seperate landmass. It was its own continent. Then (still long before the dinosaurs) europe slammed into asia and thrusted up the Ural Mountains. So 'europe' may not be just a figment of the biased imaginations of white christian european geographers after all - it does have some reality in nature. This europe lacked Italy though.

Hundreds of millions of years later italy broke off Africa and slammed into europe, forcing up the alps.

Similarly the Indian subcontinent broke away from the south east africa and then scooted across the indian ocean,and slammed into asia-forcing up the himalayas.

Totally agree. Say how and what you feel. People should open up with discussions and express their hurt like adults rather than be someone they are told or lead to believe they should be.

It's an absolute joke. They got rid of blackboards in schools, and the kid's rhyme "baa baa black sheep" has been structurally destroyed by the two-syllable "family friendly" word rainbow. Eugh.

How can we have freedom of speech whilst not being allowed to use figurative terms such as "ret*d" or "gay"?

I don't have any religion, but when somebody wishes me a "merry christmas" I don't take offence and start a revolution about it!

(ATTENTION: This post is tongue in cheek satire about the victimization of everyone and it's effects on language usage)

A particular word may have several meanings or may eveolve into taking on other meanings. Take the word "hot". It means a high temperature. "It's hot outside". Then it came to also mean stolen. "That car is hot". How illogical that is! The car may be hot (stolen) but the temperature of it, or inside it, is the same as other cars. What is that implying? We could say that it's offensive and disrespectful to people who have fevers to use the word "hot" (meaning high temperature) to refer to something in a negative way, such as stolen property. It's downright bullying!

Then things get confusing. "Hot" can also mean "very good looking" or "very desirable". "He's hot!" or "Ipad is the hottest item on the market right now". It could be pointed out that saying someone is hot is not only sexist, it's probably ageist and looksist as well and is a form of bullying because it implies that others are not hot. Using such borderline hate speech could also be offensive to those with fevers, especially people with chronic infections that cause fevers. However, using it to imply desirability is a good thing, unless you factor in the evils of consumerism.

We could get back to the whole temperature "hot and cold" ideas, but by now the word has been ruined and calls to mind all sorts of terrible connotations, so the safest and kindest way to deal with temperature issues is to simply pretend that they do not exist. After all, noticing that something is warmer or cooler is the first step in discriminating against it because of the temperature. The same could be said for those who are nice looking and items that sell well. As for stolen property, it's a very delicate situation because we don't want to downplay the suffering that the person who is challanged in the area of recognizing and respecting others property and rights. We don't want to use slang to refer to their actions, which are not their fault, but societies fault. By being flippant and using slang to refer to stolen items, we downplay and disrespect the pain of the person who is forced to steal.

As a result of the many offenses, both intended and unintended, when using the word "hot" and all that it may or may not imply, it is probably a very good idea to not only strike the word from our vocabularies, but also the concepts behind all meanings of the word.

(End satire)

PS. I call firefighters "firemen" whether they are male or female. I say "mailman" if I know the mailman is a man or if I don't know what sex they are, and since we have a lady that brings our mail and has for years, everybody on our street calls her the mail lady. I have heard her called the "mailman lady" before too.

I as once surprised when I found out chalkboard was a PC word for blackboards. I never knew they were called that back in the days because they were called chalkboards at my school when I was little.

I never heard the PC version of "baa baa black sheep." It's very stupid if they changed the word black in it. Why not change the name for the color black? People will mind as well get offended by the color.


I wonder how many other terms I grew up with that were PC? I learned that criss cross applesauce was one because the original word is Indian style for the sitting position. Spring Break, yep also grew up with that word too. I never knew it was called Easter Break.

Here is a crazy story. In high school, our school mascot was called the Chiefs. One time we had a vote in school about rather to change it. I voted No to it because I didn't not like change and I like things to be the same. Everyone else must have felt the same way too because they also voted no. Why the plan to change the school mascot? They were concerned some people would find it offensive or some people found it offensive. I thought it was so stupid because what was so offensive about Chiefs? Well that is that they call someone of Native Americans. Someone who is the head of the community. Mom explained to me people may think it's mocking the Natives and I told her it was so stupid because we live on an Indian Reservation so of course we would have Native mascots and there are lot of natives in the area so why can't they have their own words for their school mascot? The whole thing was just stupid and to get offended over that word is just ridiculous. Just an example of PC crap I am not fond of. Changing a mascot because some people might find it offensive or get offended by it.

I believe 'black boards' morphed into 'chalkboards' because school chalk boards have been colored green for the last sixty plus years. Not because of race.

Why not call them green boards?

because some were still black, and some were green, and some were even blue.

EDIT - actually, it's just a north american vs british thing - they called them blackboards in the UK and chalkboards in the US (and to some degree in Canada), just as a matter of tradition. funny that people see "political correctness" where there isn't any!

My kids school has white boards and markers here. Those dry erase boards. Everybody I've met calls them whiteboards. I'm not offended.