ARTelevision

...and the words you can use will be printed on a credit card and updated daily.
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It's no longer called "Politically Correct" because "Political" is too loaded a term and "Correct" makes children think that "Incorrect" is an option - which would give them anxiety and lower their self-esteem.
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Language police bar 'old,' 'blind'

LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) --Oh heck: Hell hath no place in American primary and high school textbooks.

But then again you can't find anyone riding on a yacht or playing polo in the pages of an American textbook either. The texts also can't say someone has a boyish figure, or is a busboy, or is blind, or suffers a birth defect, or is a biddy, or the best man for the job, a babe, a bookworm, or even a barbarian.

All these words are banned from U.S. textbooks on the grounds that they either elitist (polo, yacht) sexist (babe, boyish figure), offensive (blind, bookworm) ageist (biddy) or just too strong (hell which is replaced with darn or heck). God is also a banned word in the textbooks because he or she is too religious.

To get the full 500-word list of what is banned and why, consult "The Language Police," a new book by New York University professor of education Dianne Ravitch, a former education official in President George H.W. Bush's administration and a consultant to the Clinton administration.

She says she stumbled on her discovery of what's allowed and not allowed by accident because publishers insist that they do not impose censorship on their history and English textbook authors but merely apply rules of sensitivity -- which have expanded mightily since first introduced in the 1970s to weed out gender and racial bias.

Ravitch's book is taking people by surprise the same way that Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" did in the 1960s in exposing the effects of pesticides.

'The Older Person and the Water'
She says a lot of people are having fun finding new titles for Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" which presents problems with every word except "and" and "the." Ravitch said old is ageist, man is sexist and sea can't be used in case a student lives inland and doesn't grasp the concept of a large body of water.

But some people say the phenomenon of sanitizing words and thought is not isolated to textbook publishers seeking not to offend anyone so that sales can be as wide as possible.

The New York Times recently reported that National Institute of Health researchers on AIDS are not only avoiding using words like gay and homosexuals in e-mails so as not to offend conservatives in the Bush administration, they are also inventing code words.

Times journalist Erica Goode reported that one researcher was told to "cleanse" the abstract of his grant proposal of words like gay, homosexual and transgender even though his research was on HIV in gay men.

Nor is the government the only source of constraint or censorship in the watch-what-you-say business. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, recently banned racy men's magazines from its shelves although it continues to sell sexy underwear.

According to Ravitch both the right wing and the left wing get what they want in American textbooks, for example an emphasis on family values and equality among ethnic groups.

"Everyone gets their pet causes incorporated in textbooks. The history texts are reluctant to criticize any dictator unless they are long dead. And even then, there are exceptions like Mao is praised in one text for modernizing China but his totalitarian rule is not mentioned," she said.

She was also unhappy to see photos in one text of Saudi women working as doctors and nurses because that implied that they had gender equality.

"You also can't say Mother Russia or Fatherland or brotherhood in texts and that's both silly, trivial and breathtaking. It is like George Orwell's 'Newspeak' come to life," she said in an interview, referring to the manipulation of language in "1984."

Ravitch said that textbook publishing is controlled by four main publishers and they aim to sell texts state by state, thus forcing them to dumb down the books and make the language as inoffensive as possible. "They don't want controversy and they don't want people screaming," she said.
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After posting your well-turned comments, perhaps you'd like to try your hand at an "acceptable" version of an existing phrase or title, like the one at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your ready to be energized, your available-for-employment, your conferencing groups, yearning to breathe smoke-free..."

or

"The Magic-Enabled Person of OZ..."

etc.

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spectre

This is so stupid that I'm at a loss for words. It makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

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No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

gov135

The authority, in my humble opinion, on the topic of using words to adjust history how we see fit is James Loewen. His "Lies My History Teacher Told Me," and especially, "Lies across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong" are wonderful books about language adjustment and the power it can have in our history texts - and the ability to learn correctly from them. Often, words are carefully selected to imply no fault to certain individuals, or others are portrayed with words such as "savages" or "red men."

I don't like government sticking its nose into the way history is written for schoolchildren. This should be left to actual historians.

How about for US currency: "In a force of higher calling then ourselves we trust"

uncle phil

we're still in that handbasket headed for hell...

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"We will take our napalm and flame throwers out of the land that scarcely knows the use of matches...
We will leave you your small joys and smaller troubles."
- Eugene McCarthy in "Vietnam Message"
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never wrestle with a pig.
you both get dirty;
the pig likes it.

Halx

This ties in nicely with my post in the cub scout thread.

This whole deal makes me more furious than i can put in words.

THANK YOU for posting this and bringing it into the public eye.

I saw an episode of the Daily Show recently where the person being interviewed was the author of a book on this very subject. She wasn't well-known or anything, but what she had to say was fascinatingly tragic. As soon as I remember what the book was called, I am going to pick it up. Mind you, I dont read books, but I will read this one.

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HiThereDear

I completely agree.




First thing that popped into my mind was Newspeak.
Language has huge power over people. Look at the outlawing of "Irish" and Welsh - the English used language as a vector of control.

Mr. Mojo

Beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

This is <b>doubleplusgood!</b>

<b>The newspeak</b> dictionary will only be 1,000 words. Then we can convert the Prols

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Prophecy

I'm right there with you, this is just sad....

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impirius7

i absolutely cannot believe this entire thing, but the one part that really got me was "sea can't be used in case a student lives inland and doesn't grasp the concept of a large body of water". where do we draw the line? the offensive terms are understandable, but a kid who doesn't know what a "sea" is? shouldn't we as a society put more effort into TEACHING him what it is instead of shielding from things he does not know about? this is just another step in the sad decline of america.

enjoyduff

fantastic...so kids are going to be more familiar with chatroom vocabulary than actual vocabulary. WTG! I4C sum probs!

BBtB

Actully the majority of this has nothing (or little) to do with the goverment. Most of it is done by the editors of the book and done because of radical groups on both sides. I do defintly concur with you on "Lies my teacher told me" Very good book. I think everyone should first read that and then go read a good long independent history book.

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"I would like about three fiddy"

krwlz

This is fucking ridiclulous....That woman ought to smacked in the fucking head with a fucking 2x4.....

4thTimeLucky

I'm not sure why you want to smack the lady krwlz. I think you may have missed the point that she is against this dumbing down. Or maybe you are just radically and violently in favour of PC.

As for the article itself. I am a little sceptical. We have similar scare stories in the UK, but the reality is that you can walk into any classroom and almost all the books will be 'normal'. To get more press coverage and sell more of your expose book it helps to hype the problem up and make out that our kids will soon only be taught sanitised pap. The reality is that most teachers are too smart and too concerned to let that happen.

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I've been 4thTimeLucky, you've been great. Goodnight and God bless!

ARTelevision

4thTimeLucky, as a former teacher at all levels through university-level, I would submit the US is farther along in this process.
I believe the academic environment in England is probably more as you describe.
Thanks for your input. It leaves room for hope.
Actually, we may have reached the peak of this type of thing and should be headed back toward more reality-based paradigms.

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krwlz

After reading it a second time, yes fourth time, you a right, I mis understood it. Thanks for the correction.

Well smack the creator of this shit in the head then...Its all good!

WhoaitsZ

...god.... come on now. i'm tired of this shit crazy world.

Daval

This is pure madness. It's times like this that I miss living in Europe, sometimes I think we've lost all of our sense.

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Kllr Wolf

DAng them PC people call them what they are, not what you *think* they should be called. Heck I have heard more about the people that keep getting labeled with more "correct" names hating it than liking it.

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