Don’t Even Think It

This just in from academia, more words you mustn’t use: 

The words “angry,” “passive” and “exotic” are also strongly discouraged and will no doubt be tutted at. Please update your files accordingly.

Via The College Fix.

Comments

[Sam]

My language. My choice.

Just... wow.

[David]

Just... wow.

I’m detecting elevated stress patterns in your voice. Please report to the correction booth. 300 cycles should do it.

[rjmadden]

So how would a classroom debate about illegal immigration take place? Are euphemisms now mandatory?

[Jimmy]

That's the gayest, most lame thing ever and it should be illegal to be this retarded. Angry ghetto man haters pale in comparison to this exotic form of stupidity.

[Greg]

I would just like to say...on second thoughts, maybe not.

[David]

Are euphemisms now mandatory?

I imagine that euphemism (and with it possibly a degree of question-begging) will at least be encouraged. Or rather, deviation from euphemism will be discouraged, if not publicly chastised. Imagine thirty pious students all sucking their teeth in unison.

Which makes me wonder what kind of debate will then be possible.

[Jimmy]

Stick and stones can break may bones, and words can hurt me too.

[NielsR]

"John Spartan, you are fined five credits for repeated violations of the verbal morality statute" - a joke from 1993...

[Atempdog]

Because "Ban Bossy" was such a success. On to phase 2!

[Lancastrian Oik]

This PLU department might find that teaching stuff may be made slightly awkward if use of the word "illegal" becomes illegal is curtailed.

[Tedunderhill2]

Let's play 'guess the pejorative':

"just how [pejorative redacted] do you have to be to consider this seriously".
"that was just [pejorative redacted]"

What a load of utter crap (expletive encouraged).

Reports to struggle session for self criticism. Fails. Unmarked grave.

[David]

I would just like to say... on second thoughts, maybe not.

Well, quite. Setting aside the claims of emotional delicacy regarding such crushing words as “angry” and “illegal,” the aim, presumably, is to blunt realism and instead encourage a kind of neurotic woolliness. And it seems likely that the need to memorise a new and corrected vocabulary – and which common adjectives are now verboten – will have the effect of limiting any debate to a certain kind of person. An in-group will “debate” among itself and arrive at conclusions the in-group finds congenial.

[Watcher In The Dark]

How odd. The picture suggests a young woman tearing up the word 'illegal' indicates we are entering an era where anything and everything is legal.

Let us hope she never needs to shout out she is being assaulted as such an allegation of an illegal act on her person might include words deemed offensive to her attacker.

[Joan]

George Orwell could not be reached for comment.

[Smudger]

Doubleplusungood. Also quack.

Spare the world from these fucking idiots.

[Smudger]

Also... why is the direction of travel always the same, i.e. to ban things? (How I have grown to hate that word).

Surely if it is "my language, my choice," then Person A is free to choose whatever language they like to express themselves, even if their choice of words hurts the feelings of Person B. And, if hurt feelings are the prime metric, surely artificially curtailing the use of language - and therefore self-expression - has the very real potential to hurt Person A's feelings, no?

[David]

I see we’re going to need another correction booth.

[Nikw211]

George Orwell could not be reached for comment.

I couldn't help noticing that the first paragraph goes from referring to a grant from the Diversity Center to talking about Angie Hambrick as director of the dCenter.

Presumably we will all know once we've truly crossed the point of no return when Diversity Center becomes DivCen and The Pride Foundation becomes PriFun and so on.

[Lancastrian Oik]

I hope she recycled that piece of paper; however, nowhere can I see a declaration that anyone involved in that campaign did so.

That's a microaggression for you right there.

[Crazed Weevil]

I suggest we follow it, but also turn it around to annoy them...

So instead of calling the person in poster an illegal immigrate (I assume that is what she is bitching about) we call her just an immigrate and people who aren't illegal immigrates we refer to as legal immigrates. Likewise for those other posters, normal people get a prefix; intelligent, calm, hetro, etc. Were as the idiots in the posters get no prefix.

Since we can't get off this planet yet and leave these muppets to it, I say we have some fun trolling them.

[Nikw211]

Surely if it is "my language, my choice," then Person A is free to choose …

But of course no, because you are still insisting on seeing the word 'free' to mean what it means now and what it means now is nothing but a neoliberal Patriarchal capitalist perversion of the real meaning of the word 'free'.

What 'free' really means is the freedom to be an ally or an enemy of the seemingly endless variations of Advanced Grievance Studies (which nevertheless all have the same distinctly pulpy flavour of recycled Marxism).

Nuanced it is not and such is the way of things.

For example, as the PJ Media article on the shooting of Jessica Hernandez in Denver (see Elsewhere (150)), stealing a car, then joyriding around the neighbourhood in it and, finally and tragically, trying to evade the long arm of the law when caught be attempting to run policemen over in it is neither illegal nor a crime but simply "a rite of passage, like getting that first summer job or making out in the movie show.".

[Nikw211]

If this student's ripping up the word illegal, does that she's still OK with being fat?

And surely this one is actually at least a little bit lame, as that piece of paper seems to be giving no small amount of resistance to her virtuous rage there.

And surely there is a deep level of irony in this one?

[Mags]

My language. My choice.

Translation: I have a right to hear only the opinions I already agree with. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.

[David]

Translation: I have a right to hear only the opinions I already agree with. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.

It would at least be more honest.

[R. Sherman]

Funny how these problems never seem to arise in advanced math and physics courses.

[Fingers McGhee]

I'm with the fat bird. In the unauthorized entry and appropriation business, we find the word highly offensive as well.

[oldwhiteguy]

university. a totally useless and worthless waste of time and money. those institutions are turning out useless and stupid people. about the only value would be in math and the sciences.

[Daniel Ream]

I am routinely aghast at how accurate Demolition Man turned out to be.

[BritInMontreal]

As in "exotic dancer"?

[AC1]

How long until the word "ban" is banned causing proponents to be strangled by their own intestines?

[Steve E]

It all stems from the belief that if there isn't a word for a thing, the thing itself will not exist.

[The Phantom]

As I said over at Kate's, this begs for a t-shirt. One long sentence using all the banned words.

David said: "Which makes me wonder what kind of debate will then be possible."

None, obviously. That's the point. They want to get right to the hitting people they don't like and throwing them in jail part.

They're Leftists. Its what they do.

[rabbit]

And what happens when some students use these words? Do they also have a choice?

[David]

David said: “Which makes me wonder what kind of debate will then be possible.”
None, obviously. That’s the point.

I suppose what’s obnoxious about such efforts, which have occurred in several universities, is the ruse that it’s being done in the name of “inclusivity” and “thinking critically,” when in fact its effect, and intended effect, seems quite the opposite. It’s basically a tool for those inclined to reflexive dogmatism. Again, the objective seems to be to predetermine how any notional debate will play out by limiting the kinds of adjectives and descriptions (and thereby nods to reality, law, etc.,) that are permissible, thereby marginalising or excluding people who holds views deemed unsophisticated.

For instance, the objection to the word “illegal” in a context of immigration law is so tendentious it seems little more than an attempt to beg the question and to minimise, even erase, an obvious distinction between those who enter a country lawfully and those who don’t. Apparently, one isn’t supposed to consider it significant when a person’s very first act on entering your country is to disregard one of its most fundamental laws. And to succumb to that level of euphemism and evasion, to accept it as how one must talk about the issue, is to pretty much surrender the argument.

[Rick Bonsteel]

What about "conscious", for the consciousness-challenged? Or "choice", for the paralyzed-by-indecision demographic?

[wtp]

I am routinely aghast at how accurate Demolition Man turned out to be

Fasten your seat belt. Idiocracy is next. In some ways we're already living the early parts.

[denis]

so not only is illegal as a word illegal it means against the law! how quaint and utterly stupid. Can I use the word stupid or am I forced to use the word lieberal instead?

[Littlebones]

Parents need to take a more proactive role in determining which colleges their kids attend, and which courses they take. Schools like this one should be utterly ostracized by a vast majority of potential students, and thereby suffer some consequences for their idiocy. It seems that the kids of everyone I know are taking kinesiology, and their parents sit idly by and permit (and funded) such a choice, despite the obvious fact that schools are obviously churning out far more kinesiology grads than the economy can possibly bear. Same thing with the choice of schools themselves. Everyone seems to assume that they're all great, when in fact, most are Marxist cesspools of nonsense, like Pacific Lutheran.

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

About 20 years ago, Hasbro, which sells Scrabble in the US, got Merriam-Webster to expurgate the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, the book that you can find in bookstores; actual tournament players in North America use a separate Tournament Word List that wasn't bowdlerized and still contains all the "naughty" words. (The rest of the world uses an even bigger word list. The OSPD is now marked suitable for home and school play.)

My favorite expurgation deals with the word FATTY. As an adjective, you can have a FATTY cut of meat; one of two cuts can be FATTIER, and one of three will be the FATTIEST of them all, all still listed in OSPD. However, FATTY is also a noun, meaning a fat person. The noun FATTY was removed because it apparently may be offensive to people, and was only listed in the first place so they could show the plural FATTIES. So even at home you can still play FATTY, just not FATTIES.

FATSO was also removed, but the oddest removal of all may have been COMSYMP.

(I had a competitive game once where I suddenly realized the seven letters on my rack formed the word ASSHOLE, and there was a place on the board to play it. A wonderful 91 points.)

[Ted S., Catskill Mtns., NY, USA]

My italics are in need of expurgation. Only Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary should be in italics.

[Charlie Suet]

The concept of only the easily offended being allowed to define what words mean and which are offensive reminds me of the whole Blurred Lines saga.

The little hitlers who banned the song picked up on the idea of the death of the author - the concept that Robin Thicke's view of what the song meant was not a decisive or even relevant factor. But they failed to grasp the idea that if meaning is generated at the point of reception, then the interpretation of the whiny sanctimonious prig is no better than anyone else's.

In this case it falls to special victim groups to define what words mean, regardless of context or intention. If anyone disagrees, special victim group member or no, well they're just wrong.

[Vui]

It is clear that the fat brownish woman who could easily be mistaken for a Wetback who has slipped over the border and looks like a dyke with dyed red hair is very serious about avoiding bad words that could offend.

However, given her wonderful sensitivity is she aware that her remarkable sexual turn-off appearance is powerful enough to give many men ED. She should be ashamed of herself for interfering with the reproductive rights of a humble male.

[TheDiggler]

My favourite is 'Man Hater'! It's perfectly fine to hate men, just don't call them on it!

[Alan White]

So can they call mean Angry White Male

[Serena]

Personally I'd be thrilled if someone called me exotic, but I guess it's not my language my choice, it's the PC brigades' language and choice. Fuck 'em.

[mojo]

Any word (yeah, a pun) on the social effects of "moronic", "stupid", "ghastly" or "twat"?

[David]

If they come for “ghastly” there’s a chance I may riot.

[Jimmy]

I'm fairly sure 'moronic' and 'stupid' are ableist, therefore you're not allowed to say them.

[Robert Johnson]

Ahh so good to see the small minded, weak kneed lemmings leaching out of the wood work yelling and screaming in their little boy falsetto voices. What a bunch of losers. To think that the future of this world is in the hands of whiney, narcissistic mental adolescents like yourselves is enough to give intelligent life pause. If the thought that asking people to think about what they say is that scary, just wait until you actually have to leave your mother's womb and go out into the BIG BAD WORLD!!!

[Smudger]

Wow. Feel the love.

[Jimmy]

'Weak kneed' smells like an ableist comment to me. People with weak knees are just as worthy of respect as any able-bodied person. Also, I propose condemning to the gulags those who blatantly abuse exclamation points.

[Caroline]

The remark about 'little boy falsetto voices' is surely a sign of patriarchal oppression. What about those of us with little girl voices?

[Ray]

Großen Gesäß Mädchen machen die Welt sich drehen.

How's that banned word list workin' out for ya?

[Quint&Jessel, Sea of Azof, Bly, UK]

Well, I hope they don't outlaw "dipshit," because then I won't be able to calls 'em like I sees 'em.

[abacab]

This is where German wins over English - there's always another way to express exactly the same concept - so if you ban "illegale Immigranten", you can always have "gesetzwiedrige Einwänderer", "Bewilligungslöse Einreiser", "unberechtigte Aufenthalter" and so , including all permutations of these.

It's so much less susceptible to Newspeak.

[Henry]

My language, my choice

You can just hear the very reasonable tone of voice, there. What they are of course saying is

Your words, my choice

(Your college, my choice
Your business, my choice
Your shirt, my choice
etcetc)

(I clean up after my tags, me :P)

[Henry]

My language, my choice

You can just hear the very reasonable tone of voice, there. What they are of course saying is

Your words, my choice

(Your college, my choice
Your business, my choice
Your shirt, my choice
etcetc)

(I clean up after my tags, me :P)

[David]

(I clean up after my tags, me :P)

Ah, when hubris met nemesis.

[Henry]

Ah, when hubris met nemesis

Characters from Asterix? :)

Anyway, somebody disabled captcha images, so the blame for the double posting lies with them, not me (or am I starting to think like Monbiot?)

[David Gillies]

The purpose of a shibboleth, since the time of the Gileadites, has been to segregate people into an in-group and an out-group. It's why Leftists are so hung-up on terminology, and why every time there is a schism in their ranks a whole rash of new jargon and taboos arises.

[Hal]

. . . . and why every time there is a schism in their ranks a whole rash of new jargon and taboos arises.

. . . I can't quite remember if the original source was Miss Manners, Jilly Cooper, Kate Fox, or someone else, but I'm reminded of the observation to the effect that lowest middle class fanatic attention to particular declarations of etiquette are the way that the newest arrivals hope they can cut off the one's who follow them . . . .

[Hal]

And, oh, yes, I'll also chime in with the observation that just pushing a button does have it's advantages, rather than trying to sort out whether the third random character in )#$*YU_)@#(EU*R is expected to be a D, &, or mebbe a {????

---The pictures of random numerals were nice, but then they'd cycle away, unfortunately . . .

[Paul - Nottingham]

Who on earth is the topless retard tearing up "Retarded."

Note to self: In case of ban, use "Retread" as an alternative.

[Fay]

And the Warsaw Ghetto was what. An unfortunate place to live?

[Stuck-Record]

We should take these people to task and play them at their own game.

Have you ever met a white person? I mean, a genuine WHITE person? I haven't. White is the colour of snow in neutral light. It's the colour of bleached paper. It is the absence of any tint whatsoever.

I'm Anglo/Irish/whatever ethnicity but looking at my hand now in the dead of winter I would describe the colour as somewhere around Pantone 91-ish.

Anyone calls me white from here on in I'm going to be deeply insulted.

So, I'm starting a movement: Pantone-ism. Anyone refers to anyone with an incorrect Pantone reference and I'm suing them for the racist pigs they are.