The recent campaign to not offend anyone by referring to them in a disparaging vernacular is not an original idea.
Lewis Grizzard in “It Wasn’t Always Easy, But I Sure Had Fun” (Villard Books- 1994) early on demonstrated his ability to offend the super sensitive egos of the predecessors to the present crowd that are offended by the intentional or accidental misspeaks of comedians or politicians (maybe one in the same) who make ad lib comments that shock a fellow citizen (or illegal immigrant).
In an outdated attempt to be politically correct L.G. pointed out it is “also necessary to know the correct term to use when referring to certain groups who are very touchy about things like that”:
1) “If you’re still saying ‘black’, you’re wrong. It’s African-American now, and don’t dare mention that the C in NAACP still stands for you-know-what”;
2) “Indians are not Indians anymore. They are Native Americans, despite the fact America got its name from an Italian”;
3) “’Gay’ and ‘homosexual’ may even be on the way out. Soon, one might be asked to say ‘individuals exercising their right to engage in an alternative lifestyle’;
4) “Then you get into your other So-and-so Americans like Italians, Hispanics, etc., except you never refer to anybody whose forebears came from say, England, because English-Americans are all a bunch of rich Protestant white people who have all the money and good jobs and got them by kicking around everybody else”;
5) “Where a white guy gets into trouble the most often is when he refers to the gender that isn’t male. The gender used to be called ‘female’. But ‘female’ is out, because the word ‘male’ is in there, so how about ‘feperson’? How about ‘women’? No, that has ‘men’ in it. Some members of the Speech Police are saying it’s okay to say that word as long as you spell it ‘womyn’. So is a ‘hysterectomy’ a ‘hertorectomy’ now? If you read about Catherine the Great are you reading about Russian herstory?”;
6) “To be completely politically correct, should men say, instead of ‘Look at that womyn over there’, ‘Look at that individual who is certainly my equal in each and every way over there?’”;
7) “We’ve gone way beyond the old ‘Miss’,’Ms.’, and ‘Mrs.’ debate. I’ve found out something else, too. Never call a trumpet player a ‘lady’” if she performs the National Anthem at the start of an Atlanta Braves baseball game.
(Things have changed a lot since 1994. Additional groups have been added to the politically incorrect category. Whether L.G.’s comments today on the subject would have gotten him fired or just subjected him to be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail “?”)
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You can reach Jerry Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com
Jerry Summers