That’s absurd.
And not at all related to “woke,” a term that has been contorted to include “politically correct,” and now, in this UK Cancer Trust suggestion, to include the completely absurd as well.
(Is this for real? Or Monty Python Meets The Onion?)
I agree with your combination of common sense and sensitivity to individuals, Semigoodlooking .
Also for the record, I am a Caucasian (no freckles) who wears jeans but no kilt, as an expression of my relaxed approach to both lifestyle and heritage. I go by various forms of address, most of which I prefer not to mention.
I’m biding my time in the hope that the opportunity will come along for me to steal that response.
While wokeness seemingly began as an effort to use less hurtful words about our fellow humans, it has taken some twisted and coercive paths.
Bret Stevens of the New York Times offers these thoughts:
“The American Medical Association recently published its “Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts,” which includes such recommendations as replacing the term “disadvantaged” with “historically and intentionally excluded,” “social problem” with “social injustice,” “vulnerable” with “oppressed,” and “blacklist” and “blackmail” with words that don’t suggest an association between the word “black” and “suspicion or disapproval.”
“This isn’t silly. It’s Orwellian. It’s a blunt attempt to turn everyday speech into a perpetual, politicized and nearly unconscious indictment of “the system.” Anyone who has spent time analyzing how the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century operated will note the similarities….
“This is why Wokeness will fail. For every attempt to cancel certain writers, others will publish them. For every diktat to fix language by replacing some words with others, people will merely find more subversive ways to say the same thing. For every effort to turn high schools and universities into Wokeness factories, there will be efforts to start afresh. Because technology, capital and good ideas move faster than ideology, those efforts will succeed more quickly than their skeptics imagine.
“In the long run, Americans have always gotten behind protest movements that make the country more open, more decent, less divided. What today is called Woke does none of those things. It has no future in the home of the free.”
Me Me! That’s so funny!
You’ve taught me something, Semigoodlooking. For years and years, I’ve used the terms “cringeworthy” and “cringe-producing.” Not having a teenager, I’m generally oblivious to pop culture words du jour, so I was unaware that “cringe” had come and gone. Pity.
For anyone who might have felt positively 21st century for using the expression “woke,” a word of advice: don’t!
I have it on good authority that NOBODY says “woke” anymore.
Isn’t that just the way it always goes?
Alas, I’m afraid so.
How woke is THIS?
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A manhole is an access space to an underground area that houses plumbing, electrical, cable or other pipes, wires, conduits or other utility equipment. It is reached by removing a large metal plate, usually in a street or sidewalk, called a manhole cover.
The point is to avoid the situation we have in Buenos Aires, where access to utility equipment is made by digging holes in the sidewalk or street, a system that guarantees the streets and pedestrian walks stay in a constant state of disrepair.
I personally prefer your suggestion, Semigoodlooking, that a manhole could be a type of bar, a thought possibly derived from the concept of a Man Cave?
I have a similar attitude. If someone says “I’d like to be called boomerang instead of Chris, and my preferred pronoun is “it,” then I’ll do my best to remember to accommodate.
But sheesh!
Since when did those that utter such banalities actually think of or pray for the people who died?
Good point. I believe there was a case back in '72. Or was it '27?
Good column, which raises legitimate questions. While Political Correctness can be carried to such an extreme that it is comical, I am thinking about the 3 crowd shootings in the US within the past week. I can't help wondering if borderline psychopaths might not be as easily pushed over the edge in their hatred of people different from themselves, if those in public elected office who revel in turning their backs on Political Correctness (enjoying using derogatory terms for persons of color, immigrants, et alia, to show how free of PC they are) might instead use more respectful language.
And in that same context, I truly despair of all the Virtue Signaling of politicians who offer "thoughts and prayers" to massacre victims, while refusing to take any action to prevent the next tragedy that will require them to once again trot out their "thoughts and prayers."
Anyway, Political Correctness, originally an exercise in being mindful of others' feelings, seems to have gone 'way off the rails in the pronoun department. I've never encountered ze and hir, but am still in denial about the need to us the plural pronoun 'they" when referring to one person. Perhaps this is how languages grow and change. And/or deteriorate.
