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jammies · 10-04-2008, 12:29 AM

Why do all the fuzzy happy inoffensive terms have to be so ugly and cumbersome? I hate using tortuous language that shilly-shallies around; of course the main point of such language is to control thought by forcing a mental pause to think of the "right" term to use.

If we could just come up with some one or two syllable words to label people with, life would be ever so much better. After all, labels are all about classifying people, and that should be efficient.

Seriously, though, I stay away from terms like "mentally challenged" or "learning impaired" or whatever hideous newspeak term is currently the vogue; sometimes you have no choice but this continual rewriting of English so as not to offend anyone ends up offending people like me that hate the bureaucratization of language. It almost makes me wish for a central authority of the English language (like the Académie française for French) that we could submit official new words to, so that we could replace the blandness of PC with something no longer offensive but also not deadly boring.

10-04-2008, 12:29 AM	#83
jammies Basement Chicken Choker Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants. Exp:	Why do all the fuzzy happy inoffensive terms have to be so ugly and cumbersome? I hate using tortuous language that shilly-shallies around; of course the main point of such language is to control thought by forcing a mental pause to think of the "right" term to use. If we could just come up with some one or two syllable words to label people with, life would be ever so much better. After all, labels are all about classifying people, and that should be efficient. Seriously, though, I stay away from terms like "mentally challenged" or "learning impaired" or whatever hideous newspeak term is currently the vogue; sometimes you have no choice but this continual rewriting of English so as not to offend anyone ends up offending people like me that hate the bureaucratization of language. It almost makes me wish for a central authority of the English language (like the Académie française for French) that we could submit official new words to, so that we could replace the blandness of PC with something no longer offensive but also not deadly boring. __________________ Better educated sadness than oblivious joy.