We’ve got all five gas burners going today!
A better virtue of a recent former President of the U.S. was his disdain for politically correct terminology. His sometimes offensive offensive has not halted the advance of the language police, who have seized academia and are claiming, like the Donbas, most of the news media. Which is why we laugh bitterly at today’s Wall Street Journal headline: “Kremlin maps new push to stifle dissent.”
Vlad the Putinator has nothing on Woke progressives — many of them funded with taxpayer dollars. Don’t say “illegal aliens”! They are “undocumented workers.” Social workers will no longer go “into the field” because the language police at the University of Southern California now deem the term triggering for great-great-great grandchildren of slaves who worked cotton fields.
‘Language policing has reached a near fever pitch
… out of a sense that labeling common terms and expressions as “problematic”— that is, blasphemous — is essential to changing society.
Crippled was changed to handicapped; after a while, this needed replacing, and thus came disabled; today terms such as differently abled attempt yet again to elude the negative associations some assign to physical disability. This is an old story, one that the cognitive scientist Steven Pinker calls a “euphemism treadmill.”
— linguist John McWhorter, in the Atlantic.
Words like ‘swell’ and ‘so’s your old man’
On no issue has language been more circumscribed (and earlier) than abortion. Live and in color, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell chided the network’s senior Capitol Hill correspondent for using the term “pro-life.”
“Pro-life”? VERBOTEN! Acceptable terminology in American’s newsrooms and faculty lounges is “anti-choice” — the negative of the much more benign-sounding “pro-choice.” A more honest term for the latter would be “pro-abortion,” but that would be your ticket to re-education camp.
At issue was a congressman’s defense of a Republican bill to save the life of infants who, somehow, survive an attempted abortion. (Only one Democrat voted in favor!)
“Let me just interrupt and say that pro-life is a term that they – an entire group wants to use – but that’s not an accurate description.”
— MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell
“I am using it because that is the term she used to describe herself, Andrea.”
— reporter Garrett Haake
Blaska’s Bottom Line: So much for the Woke Left’s dictum that people be called by the names and pronouns of their choice.
9 responses to “Say what?”
Andrea Mitchell can go fly a kite.
Getting back to the fuel faux-pas at hand, my family is from Ottumwa, IA, and for the longest time, coal was the carbon that was most likely to heat the homes.
But, my elderly uncles, all of whom are now deceased, had a beloved sentence of exultation over things going one’s way, “Now we’re cooking with gas!”
Apparently, gas-cooking represented real American progress in their home…and now the left wants to take that away. FOR SHAME!
Yep, can’t have those stoves anymore. Cory Booker says they’re racist.
All that is meet and right (Providence, if you prefer) suggests…nay DEMANDS (through its Intermediary Agent [The Gotch]), that Blaska immediately (if not sooner!) begin referring to his…um…charges as Unlettered PRACTICUM Hands.
We’re not finished…Unlettered is in our crosshairs as we speak!
The Gotch
Saying someone is retarded is non-PC. But retarded was a reform over moron, which was a reform over feeble-minded, which was a reform over idiot. But today you can call someone feeble minded without much flack from the PO.
I was at Sprecher’s on the West Side years ago before it burned down and overheard some young businessmen at an adjacent table who were attending a conference at the hotel across the street use the word “retard”. When I was about to leave, I stepped over, excused myself, and told them that because it’s Madison, we cant use that word, but suggested they use “f*cktard” instead. I thought all four of them would fall over laughing. It was pretty epic, actually.
“but suggested they use “f*cktard” instead. I thought all four of them would fall over laughing.”
They’re not alone, Kooter…Gut Laugh Leader Board Entry!
IMO, phuque-wit ain’t off’n the table, neither…
The Gotch
Let’s have some empathy for Andrea Mitchell. Her husband (former Fed chair Alan Greenspan) is 96 years old! All she wants at this point is an end to adult diapers and delerium induced cries of “irrational exuberance!”. Sure life is precious and all but she’s reached a point where enough is enough.
I hope MSNBC creates a safe space where she longer has to hear the L word.
If George Carlin were alive today, his monologues would write themselves. Control and destruction of language was a prime target of his rants throughout his career.
“We have no more stupid people—everyone has a learning disorder!”
Language control is one step removed from thought control.
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The Gotch