Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Pushing Back Against Politically Correct Language

"The word 'eskimo' comes from the language of the cree (?) indians to describe their neighbors to the north, and may actually be a racial slur. The inhabitants of the Canadian High Arctic call themselves the Inuit (the people). I believe that the Alaskan natives are Aleuts …“

I am aware of that, and I do not care. In fact, I regard with particular hatred attempts to change the language to sooth the imaginary hurt feelings of various mascots of the political Left. Unless you can tell me, off the top of your head and without looking it up, the name in any Eskimo dialect for a Virginian, I suggest your concern for their concern for our names for them is illegitimate, particularly where no English speaker knows the meaning of the insult. (None, that is, but I: it refers to them as eaters of raw fish, a slight against their relative poverty).

Besides, what could be more insulting to me that to have the Eskimos refer to themselves as ‘the People’? What does that make me? A non-people?
I still remember the day that I found out "gypped" came from the word Gypsy and that if I used it then I was slurring gypsies everywhere. Darn. I loved that word. It didn't seem to matter that everything I'd ever read about true Gypsy culture, including writing by Gypsies themselves, indicated that they'd glory in that meaning. One upping outsiders monetarily would be counting coup for them, to mix my metaphors.

For everyone who has ever wearied of editing our colorful language into plain vanilla in order to not offend anyone, I direct you to John C. Wright's On Political Correctness, Or How to Speak Nonspeak. It's a gem.

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