Jon Keller gives a crack set of comments about the Lowell Spinners Political Correctness Night, where the bat boys were batpersons and the shortstops were vertically challenged players.
Keller also has a poll that highlights the killjoy nature of PC...I'm printing his poll out with my comments in red.
- Insistence on gender neutrality in all things (e.g. "selectperson" or "second-baseperson")
Where the men can now become nurses and women can now be mayors, there is no bias. When it gets ridiculous as in the above, it smacks of insecurity and avoiding reality.
- The insistence that there is no right or wrong
I graduated with a mathematics degree in 1994. Proving theorems and solving complex mathematical problems was the way I got out of writing fifteen page papers. The proof of 1+1=2 is rumored to be 800 pages long, and in abstract algebra, 1+1=2 is the result of an element in an additive ring with the operation of + acting as a collector of successive items, with 1 representing a unitary object and 2 representing the successive object.
In my current line of work, there are certain rules and regulations I must follow, and I must keep a high accuracy percentage, or else I get FIRED. That means I cannot explain my way out of my errors; I actually have to have proof that I was right before they dismiss the charge, so I'm guilty before I'm proven innocent.
'There is no right or wrong' is a cop-out when the person posing the question can't answer it either.
- Phobic antipathy toward Western civilization, its cultural works and beliefs
In other words, be really, really suspicious and jealous of stuff that was not done by the Third World, corrupt despots and bloodthirsty dictators, and things that involve science, law and other innovations...things that keep people in the Middle Ages or lesser.
- One must never do anything to damage anyone else's self-esteem (i.e. grading, tracking, testing)
Horsehockey (not to you, Jon!). Testing, grading and tracking is absolutely essential - it gauges knowledge, points out errors, and helps people to understand what is right and what is wrong. Even if you're not held to a job that expects high quality, you're still being graded, tracked and tested by your managers and supervisors to see if the hire they made (you) will be able to tackle higher assignments down the road. If you break under pressure, you may miss out on raises, and soon enough, you may be shown the door for lack of initiative.
- Feel-good environmental fads of dubious value (such as carbon footprint offsets)
Any activity that protects the elite at the expense of the non-elite is a product of guilt, guarded jealousy, and envy. The elite, in order to protect all their goodies, throw out all sorts of curve ball theories to keep the non-elite from enjoying their spoils. Environmentalism is a great example - the elite preach the gospel according to Gaia, but once the mercury-filled lights are dimmed, the elite go home in their carbon-wasting jets, drive their gas-guzzling cars, and enter their gated mansions, smugly counting their lucre behind closed doors and snickering. Any "-ism" that has been tried as a political fiat always fails and sometimes takes a human toll - sometimes at the point of a gun.
- Excessive emphasis on the "root causes" of violent criminal behavior
Analysis paralysis hasn't solved the great murders of the 20th and 21st century...but defense attorneys seem not to mind when they can bill at $300 per hour.
- Going nuclear over someone else's harmless slip of the tongue
Don Imus found out the hard way - referring to a women's basketball team as he did in passing was similar to taking down a hornet's nest with a machine gun.
On the other hand, if you're zealous in correcting people for their slips of the tongue, it would be better to keep your tongue in your mouth instead of being a pushy busybody.
- Valuing PC over the First Amendment
Free speech is not equal to saying whatever you want while the other speaker is forced to listen. Free speech is also not equal to having people accept your wacky theories or your obscenity-laden tirades.
Free speech really is saying things that people won't agree with, any may require you clarify your statement. Free speech also guarantees us saying things without fear of arrest or reprisal.
PC mutates free speech into something that is synthetic, a sort of code-word interlingua between two people who are afraid to say in public what they are free to say behind closed doors. PC euphemizes unpleasant things, incorrectly elevates dull ones, and attempts to block off all stereotypes and characterizations that people find unsettling. PC manages to take the joy out of wonderful, marvelous things and reduces them to impersonal, cold machinations, in which the joke is on the unknowing.
Behind closed doors, the freedom to be ugly and to lash out on those beneath you while in public you painstakingly choreographed the correct, inoffensive version prove you to be a phony, rather than being one of the "enlightened."
7/19/2008
21st century clichés and how to get rid of them
I'm always interested in good writing and good speech. In school, reading literature was my worst subject; grammar and vocabulary were my strongest. Here are seven clichés that should be struck from the tongues and the type.
1. About
About usually means "approximately," as in "It'll take about 30 minutes or so to install your Windows program." About is also used for measurements and circumference, as in "Trace a line about the two points."
About takes on a pretentious, gossipy, snobby, smug, shallow sheen when it's used to emphasize something, as in "It's all about the Benjamins."
2. As a...
"As a..." tells the reader you have absolute authority on the subject, and no one can refute you. "As a mother, I recommend..." sound like you just got your PhD in anthroplogy and you want to test it out on a few friends. If it sounds too high-falutin', don't use it. "I recommend..." will do the job nicely.
3. (We live) in a world...
Don LaFontaine, the famous voice-over actor, gets paid millions of dollars to utter this phrase. His sons and daughters have attended the colleges of their choice without having to take out student loans.
The above phrase is a phrase I like to call "wrist twisting," which means that the person who's saying it is often winding up like a top, and then casting their dainty wrist to fulfill their point. "We live in a world where..." is just verbal empty calories, and normally used by people who have very little to say. Except Don LaFontaine, of course.
4. Need
Compare the following two sentences.
"The fondue is delicious, but it needs a little more wine. "
"The fondue is delicious, but you need to concentrate on the roast beef."
In the first sentence, the object or a noun phrase follows and is matter-of-fact. In the second sentence, the infinitive "to" follows the noun, and sounds condescending (as in, "you're wasting too much time on the fondue - the roast beef is beginning to burn" or "your weak suit is your roast beef").
Needs to + infinitive also indicates frustration and one's desires and demands not being fulfilled snappily enough. To reduce the nastiness and smugness of Needs to + infinitive, use "must" for supreme urgency (you don't want the roast beef to burn to a crisp), "have/has to" for moderate urgency or direct orders (you can't get out getting that roast beef) or "should" if it's less urgent or a suggestion (the past recipes were OK, but we want one that will put your tastebuds into heaven - or at least avoid ordering pizza).
5. From...to...
In the middle of a sentence, describing a trip, this phrase is not a cliche. ("We went from London to Paris to Madrid on our senior trip." "The seniors went from homeroom to the gym to the park on their scavenger hunt.")
When from...to... begins a sentence, it's used to grab the attention of the reader - nothing more, nothing less. It dresses up a boring article, akin to those cute things in high school where a naughty word would be used, then the phrase, "now that I've got your attention..." follows. This variation of from...to... also sounds a bit snobbish, as if these places were so sacred and exclusive, no mere mortal could even step their pinky toe in there.
6. Overloaded wrist-twisters
A wrist-twister is a phrase that can be best described as "the windup before the pitch." Usually that pitch is loaded with clichés, propaganda, agitation and frustration, and a "whole buncha nothin' in there." (Listen to Valley Girl from Frank Zappa for that reference.)
7. If
This two lettered conjunction is fine, when used properly. 'If's' intention is to put forth a desire, a hypothesis, or advice ("If I had a million dollars..." "If this is true..." "If I were you...")
In talk radio or TV shows, however, 'if' is finding its way to promote things, most of the time sketchy or skeevy in nature. "If you read the book..." may make Barnes and Noble's bottom line healthier, but after buying said book, you have to take at least two showers or spend your entire weekend finding second through eighteenth opinions, then don't use 'if' for self promotion. In fact, stay away from talk radio. 99% of the time they sell garbage and snake oil anyway.
8. How
Not Tonto's old greeting to the Lone Ranger (aka Kemosabe) but an exercise in clarification. "How does that work?" "How do you know?" and "How are you" are perfectly reasonable uses for 'How.' When the husband who does wrong by the wife gets "How could you?" before a few days of the silent treatment, it's a good example of 'how.'
A bad example and putting 'how' into the tawdry red-light district of clichés is the phrase "How can..." Actually, "how can...when..." begins guilt-trips and other psychological head games.
Politicians, especially incumbents, nanny-staters, and full-bore control freaks, will use "how can..." for naked self-promotion. "How can Senator X put forth a bill for animal rights when there's a lot of children going hungry every night?" "How can Senator Y block a bill for animal rights when there's a lot of animals used for testing?" (For the record, both bills got killed and Senators X and Y got voted out.)
1. About
About usually means "approximately," as in "It'll take about 30 minutes or so to install your Windows program." About is also used for measurements and circumference, as in "Trace a line about the two points."
About takes on a pretentious, gossipy, snobby, smug, shallow sheen when it's used to emphasize something, as in "It's all about the Benjamins."
2. As a...
"As a..." tells the reader you have absolute authority on the subject, and no one can refute you. "As a mother, I recommend..." sound like you just got your PhD in anthroplogy and you want to test it out on a few friends. If it sounds too high-falutin', don't use it. "I recommend..." will do the job nicely.
3. (We live) in a world...
Don LaFontaine, the famous voice-over actor, gets paid millions of dollars to utter this phrase. His sons and daughters have attended the colleges of their choice without having to take out student loans.
The above phrase is a phrase I like to call "wrist twisting," which means that the person who's saying it is often winding up like a top, and then casting their dainty wrist to fulfill their point. "We live in a world where..." is just verbal empty calories, and normally used by people who have very little to say. Except Don LaFontaine, of course.
4. Need
Compare the following two sentences.
"The fondue is delicious, but it needs a little more wine. "
"The fondue is delicious, but you need to concentrate on the roast beef."
In the first sentence, the object or a noun phrase follows and is matter-of-fact. In the second sentence, the infinitive "to" follows the noun, and sounds condescending (as in, "you're wasting too much time on the fondue - the roast beef is beginning to burn" or "your weak suit is your roast beef").
Needs to + infinitive also indicates frustration and one's desires and demands not being fulfilled snappily enough. To reduce the nastiness and smugness of Needs to + infinitive, use "must" for supreme urgency (you don't want the roast beef to burn to a crisp), "have/has to" for moderate urgency or direct orders (you can't get out getting that roast beef) or "should" if it's less urgent or a suggestion (the past recipes were OK, but we want one that will put your tastebuds into heaven - or at least avoid ordering pizza).
5. From...to...
In the middle of a sentence, describing a trip, this phrase is not a cliche. ("We went from London to Paris to Madrid on our senior trip." "The seniors went from homeroom to the gym to the park on their scavenger hunt.")
When from...to... begins a sentence, it's used to grab the attention of the reader - nothing more, nothing less. It dresses up a boring article, akin to those cute things in high school where a naughty word would be used, then the phrase, "now that I've got your attention..." follows. This variation of from...to... also sounds a bit snobbish, as if these places were so sacred and exclusive, no mere mortal could even step their pinky toe in there.
6. Overloaded wrist-twisters
A wrist-twister is a phrase that can be best described as "the windup before the pitch." Usually that pitch is loaded with clichés, propaganda, agitation and frustration, and a "whole buncha nothin' in there." (Listen to Valley Girl from Frank Zappa for that reference.)
7. If
This two lettered conjunction is fine, when used properly. 'If's' intention is to put forth a desire, a hypothesis, or advice ("If I had a million dollars..." "If this is true..." "If I were you...")
In talk radio or TV shows, however, 'if' is finding its way to promote things, most of the time sketchy or skeevy in nature. "If you read the book..." may make Barnes and Noble's bottom line healthier, but after buying said book, you have to take at least two showers or spend your entire weekend finding second through eighteenth opinions, then don't use 'if' for self promotion. In fact, stay away from talk radio. 99% of the time they sell garbage and snake oil anyway.
8. How
Not Tonto's old greeting to the Lone Ranger (aka Kemosabe) but an exercise in clarification. "How does that work?" "How do you know?" and "How are you" are perfectly reasonable uses for 'How.' When the husband who does wrong by the wife gets "How could you?" before a few days of the silent treatment, it's a good example of 'how.'
A bad example and putting 'how' into the tawdry red-light district of clichés is the phrase "How can..." Actually, "how can...when..." begins guilt-trips and other psychological head games.
Politicians, especially incumbents, nanny-staters, and full-bore control freaks, will use "how can..." for naked self-promotion. "How can Senator X put forth a bill for animal rights when there's a lot of children going hungry every night?" "How can Senator Y block a bill for animal rights when there's a lot of animals used for testing?" (For the record, both bills got killed and Senators X and Y got voted out.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)