The politics of political correctness – The New Indian Express

Our obsession with political correctness has now led us to censorship of words. We now have to be diligent, almost paranoid, before we pen down a word or utter it. A Big-Brother-ish nightmare, where anything and everything we say is examined, dissected, evaluated, weighed, criticised, and we are rebuked and cancelled for it too.

I mean, have you ever thought who are these people who keep mucking about and changing the meanings of words? Is it the mischief of a single individual, or a secret society of wordsmiths who meet every 50 years, change the meanings of words, and giggle and die?

This week, a 50-page compilation of words was released by the Lok Sabha Secretariat, which certified certain words as unparliamentary. Words like jumlajeevi, Covid spreader, ashamed, abused, betrayed, hypocrisy, anarchist, corrupt, criminal, hooliganism, drama, eyewash, lie, and incompetent are among them.

While the honourable MPs rush and grab their copies of Wren & Martin to brush up on synonyms, here are a few to aid them in maintaining the sanctity and decorum of the temple of democracy. Duplicity and insincerity can be the new hypocrisy, while incapable, inefficient and inept substitute incompetent. How about replacing betrayed with fooled, gulled, bamboozled (this one I am sure Mr Tharoor will use), and duped.

A person with a criminal record can be described as a malefactor or lawbreaker. When MPs throw chairs in Parliament (we havent seen this in a long time) or party cadres resort to fisticuffs on the campaign trail, we can refer to the incident as disorderly behaviour instead of hooliganism. The word corrupt can be replaced with fraudulent, unethical and untrustworthy.

Taking the debate outside Parliament, we can also no longer use the word psycho. Even if the person has plunged a pencil right through your hand and is now threatening to pierce your eyeballs with a geometry compass remember society will shun you if you call them psycho! Instead, choose acceptable words like oddball, or even the fancy capricious as you sip on your Orange pekoe Darjeeling tea with a stiff upper lip while trying not to drool as the tea slips out from the corner of your mouth.

Some other words that we no longer can use are midget,retarded, and my favourite, homeless. Instead, say someone who is experiencing homelessness.' I am sure the person already knows that they are experiencing the phenomenon. Imaginegoing up to a homeless person and asking, Sir, are you lost or experiencing homelessness? What do you think the answer would be? Frankly, it is not an amusement park ride that they are experiencing!

In the US, a midget (now a derogatory slur) is called a little person or person of short stature.' Now if I was one, I would kick the shins of every person (unable to reach the persons face) who called me little.So remember, the next time you want to have a conversation with an elderly, alcoholic, homeless, crazy, fat person, you must refer to them as 'a senior, preposterous, adipose-harbouring person with a substance abuse disorder who is experiencing homelessness.'

Word!

AnirbanBhattacharyya

abcomedyshow@gmail.com

Author, actor and standup comic

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The politics of political correctness - The New Indian Express