Friday, July 31, 2015

So It's Come to This

Everything Is Problematic, University Explains: The University of New Hampshire has a “Bias-Free Language Guide.” As the document assures its readers, it “is not meant to represent absolute requirements of language use.” (Universities have tried imposing absolute requirements of language use, only to be struck down on First Amendment grounds.) So the guide should be understood not as an attempt at censorship, which would be illegal, but as a cutting-edge statement of p.c. language norms. It indicates that the list of terms that can give offense has grown quite long indeed.

11 comments:

Deb said...

There's being courteous and not using slurs and/or language that we know has offensive connotations, and then there's just lunacy. Guess which one this is.

mybillcrider said...

And there's benign lunacy and dangerous lunacy. I won't ask you to guess which one this is.

Deb said...

Are we sure they're not trolling?

mybillcrider said...

The University of New Hampshire? Trolling? I guess it's possible.

mybillcrider said...

Or maybe this is a hoax. I'd like to think it is.

Deb said...

There's also Poe's Law (no relation to Edgar Allen) which posits that when ideas get too extreme they are indistinguishable from parody. Perhaps this proves the point.

Greg Daniel said...

I am just giddy that a New England university lists "ya'll" as "preferred." So I will embrace that and ignore the rest. Wonder where they stand on "all ya'll?"

mybillcrider said...

My guess is that they'd approve.

Rick Robinson said...

This attempts to lend credibility to over the top PC "safeness". Absolutely ridiculous. This is the verbal version of helicopter parenting, I guess.

Don Coffin said...

Apparently the president of UNH disavowed the thing, said it was well-intentioned, but a huge mistake.

mybillcrider said...

Good for him.