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Erenda, I do so wish that it were a joke, but it is not. Most people don't speak that way, but there is a small but very vocal and radical segment of our population that has been promoting those modification to the english language. Most of them are college students and professors. They claim that by changing the language the harm from hurtful comments and the predijudices and bias that generated them will be elliminated.
The movement is called as you have found "political correctness" or "PC" for short. However, the real effect of the movement is to increase unrest, have insults percieved were none were intended, to shape how issues are percieved, and to perpetuate the very predijudices that they claim will be eliminated.
There are some joke version of PC dictionaries floating around on the net. But their real lexicon is not much different. They use language to shape the perception of issues, such as using the word "correctness" in PC, which implies that anyone who does not agree with them are "incorrect".
PC combined with anti-harrasement issues (and some related causes) have caused serious damage in our society. Many people are afraid of speaking their minds on little issues without it being misinterpreted through the eyes of PC or anti-harassement regulations.
For example, you are a man, you go to work on your way to the office you pass a groups of your coworkers "women" and say "Good morning, girls" or even "Good morning, ladies", and that is considered a case of sexual harrasement. While "Good morning, genders opposite to mine" is considered not a problem. Once again as a fellow, you complement a coworker on her appearance by saying "You certianly look pretty this morning", or even if she has just changed her hairdo, "I like the way your hair looks", will get him in trouble. While saying, "Your appearance is acceptable". is alright.
Do you mean that they are now also using "laid off" to replace "fired"? There are both old American slange terms for similar but different situations. To be fired means, to have your employment terminated by your employer, permanent. While "laid off" is to have your emplyment suspended by your employer, temporary. Now that you mention it, I do recall cases of permanet termination being called "long term layoffs"
Examples of a layoffs would be a manufacturing firm that produces one product and is over stocked in that product will stop their production line and lay off their line workers until they need to manufacture more. Or contruction workers, who are laid off during bad weather, until the bad weather is over.
About the issue of sexual harassment, I am remided of a fellow student during my college days. There were offical anti-harassment rules. This fellow broke one of those rules twice, and as a result was expelled from college during his senior year. The first incident happened when a young lady was using on a ladder on a sixth floor balcony that servered as a corridor. She sliped and fell, he was walking by and happened to catch her as she fell. Had he not caught her, she would have fallen over the edge of the balcony to the ground below. As he caught her, he happened to momentatily touch her somewhere where she didn't want to be. She reported him, and it was noted in his record. A few months latter is was walking through a crowd as a students were entering a lecture room. He stumbled and fell. In the process, of falling, he hit knocked over a chair and injured his head and it was reported that his arm brushed against the breast of one of the "female students". She reported him for touching her breast without her permission. By the anti-harrasement regulations, that was his second violation, so he was expelled.
Pangor
Last edited by pangor on 11 Apr 2005 17:42; edited 1 time in total |
, maybe the question was differently logical
Got it. There are some terms in bulgarian too like :
Thank you for the laugh erendita 
