Alice Thomson tells us in The Times this morning that "If Mr Clarke wants to cut the prison population he should concentrate on white collar criminals, women prisoners, drug addicts and the mentally ill". Do you like the way women deserve automatically to be considered for shorter sentences just by virtue of their sex?
Mind you, at least she uses the term "mentally ill", unlike her colleague Anushka Asthana in the next column who, like just about everyone else in medialand, insists on calling it "learning difficulties". You regularly hear people who are nearer the grave than the classroom referred to as people with "learning difficulties". This is now backfiring on itself because you can't talk about someone's learning difficulties in the proper sense of the term - I had a lot of trouble learning algebra for example - without risking giving the impression that they are not just not quite as bright as some of their classmates but clinically retarded.
This politically correct bullshit is now going completely mad. I was recently firmly chastised at a public meeting for referring to "the elderly". I should call then "older people" I was told. Older than who for Christ's sake?
Why can't we call a spade a spade anymore? Do the people themselves or their families really give a toss?
Hi Theo,
ReplyDeleteIf someone told me that I couldn't use the term "the elderly" at a public meeting, I would be inclined to respond, "I was not being derogatory. If I wished to denigrate the elderly, I would have called them the fucking elderly." I think that would have made everything very clear, and the meeting could then have continued with everyone feeling much happier.