When political correctness goes too far

Political correctness (or PC, as it is known) originated as something of a joke – quite literally, as it was created in a comic strip – and still has overtones of the totalitarian thinking that featured in the novel 1984.  It has laudably eradicated many examples of stigmatising, dehumanising and downright offensive terminology that used to be commonplace such as ‘cripple’, ‘half caste’ and ‘OAP’, yet many now believe it has gone too far.

The PC brigade comes in for particular ridicule for its extreme attempts to make language non-sexist. Thus a ‘chairman’ becomes an inanimate object – “chair” – a ‘grandfather’ clock is termed a “longcase” clock and, we’re told, a ‘granny knot’ should be more properly referred to as “an unstable reef knot”.  When this manner of thinking is taken to the extreme, it means terms such as ‘Old Master’, ‘Johnny come lately’ and ‘any Tom, Dick or Harry’ are outlawed. Instead, the acceptable, gender-neutral euphemisms are ‘classic painting’, ‘upstart’ and ‘any ordinary person’. While writers must be sensitive to such potential landmines when choosing their words, it sometimes feels like people are too quick to take offence when none is intended.

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