Pc Update

[bluemonday]

'Man on the street' is offensive to women

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/261...e-to-women.html

The phrase "man on the street" should not be used in case it offends women, according to a politically-correct language guide for council staff.

 

The document claims the popular saying is based on the assumption that the world is male and makes the views or work of women invisible.

 

It suggests that town hall officers should use "general public" a positive and less offensive alternative.

 

The guide also kills off the phrase "manning the switchboard" and suggests "staffing" or "running the switchboard" instead.

 

The suggestions, put forward by Chichester District Council, West Sussex, have been criticised as an example of "repulsive" political correctness.

 

Tony Colpoys, chairman of Ebernoe parish council, West Sussex, said: "This kind of thing really gets my goat - it's not as though anybody in their right mind would believe that the "man in the street" referred solely to the male sex. It's just stupid, I've never heard anything like it.

 

"I think political correctness is one of the most ghastly things about our society - it's one of the most repulsive things ever to be invented."

 

The council said that the document, which is distributed to all staff and council members, is not a rulebook but a guide to help staff and members find the correct words.

 

A spokesman said: "We introduced the guide because as community leaders we must be aware of what modern society requires of the public sector. This includes the sensitivity of various individuals and groups, and current thinking in society in general.

 

"It is easy to make fun of individual phrases or words but what we are seeking to do is to be more sensitive and responsive to the needs of others in our society."

 

The seven-page guide offers other suggestions, including avoiding phrases like "old woman", "old fool" and "old codger", which, the council said, make old people seem fussy, stupid and dependent. It suggests simply using the phrase "old person" instead.

[Mutley]

Are any women here or does anyone know of any women who have ever been offended by any of the following terms?

 

Man on the street

Manhole cover

Postman

Milkman

Men at work signs

The Mister Men

...

[3v0]

Who the fuck are these people? Do they ever admit who they actually are when they make up this shit? "Hey this is me, I decided that women, blacks, asians, children, donkeys, gophers are insulted by this saying"

 

Or is it a shared responsibility?

 

Tossers whoever they are, should be shot.

[matty]

FFS,

 

Next it will be a 'Ploughpersons Lunch' and not a Ploughman's Lunch.

 

What utter PC bollox.

[Foxtrotlima]

I wonder what they are going to do if they ever have to have anything to do with:-

 

Nigel Mansell

Shirley Manson

 

I mean come on, I am a woman and not in the least bit offended by any of this crap. In fact, I am going as far as to say that I have a manhole cover in my back garden. There, I said it and feel in no way dis empowered as a female by the word.

 

To reiterate what matty said, "What utter PC bollox".

[monasqueen]

Well said Foxtrotlima.

 

When they refer to a "chairperson" why is it always a woman, while the correct term for the position - "chairman" only gets used if the holder is a man?

 

Person the doors, someone, I want to get out

 

By the way, whilst thinking that this is a total load of bollox - there's another term that we clearly should not use, as it relates to a part of the male anatomy. What is the pc alternative?

[bluemonday]

Reproductive organs?

[Skeddan]

As I understood it, 'man' used to be gender neutral and not specific to males only.

 

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html

 

There may be two uses of the word - referring to either sex, or referring to males only. If anything it might be sexist and offensive to consider 'man' can only refer to males (as if females don't count - which they didn't when the main use of the word became narrowed down). Wouldn't it be better if the PC brigade stopped trying to bastardise the language (Postperson etc.), and better to remember that 'man' is also gender neutral (Madam Chairman).

 

I also prefer 'actor' rather than actress (for a female actor), president rather than presidentess, builder rather than buildress, and chairman rather than chairmaness.

[Knoxville]

Well said Foxtrotlima.

 

When they refer to a "chairperson" why is it always a woman, while the correct term for the position - "chairman" only gets used if the holder is a man?

 

Person the doors, someone, I want to get out

 

By the way, whilst thinking that this is a total load of bollox - there's another term that we clearly should not use, as it relates to a part of the male anatomy. What is the pc alternative?

 

Everyone knows that women are more inferior than men, thats why its called a " chairman " and " man hole ".

 

Women know your place.......the kitchen, now go and make me a cup of tea.

 

After all this is why women have smaller feet, so they can get closer to the sink.

[Princey]

Man : is a term used to describe a member of the species Homo Sapien.

 

Wiki knows it all:

 

The English term "Man" (from Proto-Germanic mannaz "man, person") and words derived therefrom can designate any or even all of the human race regardless of their gender or age. This is indeed the oldest usage of "Man" in English. It derives from Proto-Indo-European *mánu- 'man, human', cognate to Sanskrit manu, Old Church Slavonic mǫžĭ, 'man', 'husband'.

 

In Old English the words wer and wyf (also wæpman and wifman) were what was used to refer to "a man" and "a woman" respectively, and "Man" was gender neutral. In Middle English man displaced wer as term for "male human", whilst wifman (which eventually evolved into woman) was retained for "female human". ("Wif" also evolved into the word "wife".) "Man" does continue to carry its original sense of "Human" however, resulting in an asymmetry sometimes criticized as sexist.[1] (See also Womyn.)

[jimbms]

I am afraid I find Baa Baa Black Sheep offensive so here is an acceptable version.

Baa Baa (or any sound a wool byproduct animal and/or animal with a speech difference may say) rainbow creature with a byproduct of wool, their first product being that of life.

Have you any spare bodily features that might be organically and harmlessly taken from said creature with minimum stress?

Yes sir, madam or any other life form or race or being that is equal to all others, yes sir, madam, those of which are both equal in statatory rights and society, three (or amny other non-offensive non-religious number) containers full.

One for the male who is equal in power to any other gender,

One for the female who is also as equal in power and not inclined to stay and do housework and produce offspring,

And another for the young male of no specific religion or origin, who, under the age of eight is not considered any lesser to a young male or femyle of more time since birth, and although lives in a narrow street, should not be stereotyped as unwealthy, chemically-dependant or abusing, or in anyway lower in society to someone who may be older, younger, of other origin, religion, gender, or species.

[jimbms]

Just to add some more we must now use the following terms.

 

Dirty Old Man: Sexually focused chronologically gifted individual.

Perverted: Sexually dysfunctional.

Lazy: Motivationally deficient.

Fat: Horizontally challenged.

Fail: Achieve a deficiency.

Dishonest: Ethically disoriented.

Clumsy: Uniquely coordinated.

Body Odour: Nondiscretionary fragrance.

Alive: Temporarily metabolically abled.

Worst: Least best.

Wrong: Differently logical.

Ugly: Cosmetically different.

Unemployed: Involuntarily leisured.

Dead: Living impaired.

Vagrant: Nonspecifically destinationed individual.

Drunk: Chemically inconvenienced.

Pregnant: Parasitically oppressed.

Ignorant: Knowledge-based non-possessor.

[monasqueen]

It appears that in America, there are quite a few people who do not want to see a black man in the White House.

 

All very non pc.

 

Perhaps the Presidential building should be painted green, so that the inhabitants can be told not to throw stones?

[manxy]

PC gone mad

A moral tale: The Squirrel & The Grasshopper

 

The real world version

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

 

The politically correct version

The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.

A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

 

The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. The British press informs people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

 

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".

 

Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter Inner London.

 

In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

 

The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

 

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile.

 

The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.

 

The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs.

 

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

 

A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug 'illness'.

 

The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in the UK.

 

The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

 

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.

 

The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister. The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom.

 

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

 

Oh and the Squirrel? He moved abroad to a more sensible country!

-----------------------------

The above is an old story and at the time, if certain words were changed it would apparently be true?

[conradthewoollyllama]

I'll be stealing that tale and giving it pride of place on my wall methinks