Politically Correct Terminology
Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2008I was out for a few drinks tonight with Parkenstein.
You’re a handicapped fucker aren’t you? I happened to remark.
I am, he replied, but before we had a chance to nod at at each other drunkenly, an irate lady barged between us.
You can’t say that.
What?
Handicapped. You can’t say that.
Why not? said Parkenstein. I am handicapped.
You can’t say handicapped, because we have issues around it.
Issues, I said. Do you mean problems?
Around it? said Parkenstein. Do you mean with it?
You can’t say that, said the sweating lady. It isn’t allowed.
What? I said.
What? said Parkenstein.
You can’t say problems with something. You have to say issues around it.
Why? I asked.
It’s caring-speak.
That’s a load of shite, said Parkenstein. It’s not my fucking fault I’m handicapped.
The caring lady twitched. You can’t say that either. You’re differently beautiful, not handicapped. And fault is a word on our list of totally-banned, and you will not use it again, please. We prefer “responsibility”. Also, you must not say “load of shite”. You are required to say, I’m not comfortable with the position you’re taking and I’d like to have a discussion around it.
Fuck that, I said.
Yeah, echoed Parkenstein. Fuck that.
This is not permitted, the caring person insisted. You will please adopt the approved terminology immediately!
Parkenstein donned his most truculent sneer. Or what?
Or I will invite you courteously to sit down in that comfortable chair, and then I’ll look at you disapprovingly until you COMPLY!!
Parkenstein swirled the dregs of his pint with his one good hand.
Bock?
Yeah.
Pass me that one-handed pick-axe, will you?
Stumble it!
June 29th, 2008
Yourself and parkenstein should be taken out and put up against a wall and shot, multiple times. Of course HE would be giggling cause it doesn’t hurt him, those bullets.
June 29th, 2008
I was told that those of “limited Intellect” were stupid. Stupid is now abolished. That’s what I was told anyway.
June 29th, 2008
LOL!!! people really have nothing better to worry about do they!! my god!
June 29th, 2008
This irate lady wasn’t breaking glasses with her handbag was she?
June 29th, 2008
^Caring Speak^ I must remember that next time I state the bleeding obvious,and it’s great to know that I’m actually differently beautiful when I know I can’t use a hammer with my left hand.
June 29th, 2008
I have the ‘tentative inclination’ that that ‘person of gender’ is talking through her ‘displaced homeowner.’
June 30th, 2008
Bock I have to say that I find you so entertaining to read your articles are great.
Living in Oz I’m some what alien to Irish politics.
But I do so enjoy your articles,thank you.:0)
I’ve set Bocktherobber as my homepage.
June 30th, 2008
yep, they’re takin’ over the world, I tell ya…
ya’ll should a told her to quit gettin’ her knickers in a knot…it’s offensive to you!
June 30th, 2008
Parkenstein is back then. Did he bring the equipment? The moon will be in Cancer later.
June 30th, 2008
Do you know what they’re calling kids who have to repeat a year here now?
Deferred Achievers.
I ask you.
July 1st, 2008
The PC Nazis have reached a new low. This story from Sweden.:
“An eight-year-old boy has sparked an unlikely outcry in Sweden after failing to invite two of his classmates to his birthday party.
The boy’s school says he has violated the children’s rights and has complained to the Swedish Parliament.
The school, in Lund argues that if invitations are handed out on school premises then it must ensure there is no discrimination.
The boy’s father has lodged a complaint with the parliamentary ombudsman.
He says the two children were left out because one did not invite his son to his own party and he had fallen out with the other one.
The boy handed out his birthday invitations during class-time and when the teacher spotted that two children had not received one the invitations were confiscated.”
………For fuck’s sake, is that all these pricks have to worry about.
July 1st, 2008
I wouldn’t see that as a PC matter at all.
Apparently all but two of the children in the class received invitations.
Isolation and exclusion are classic bullying techniques, and it seems that in this case the school was being used to isolate those two children.
It doesn’t matter what the reasons were. No school could tolerate being used like that, and if it was done to a child of mine I’d be extremely annoyed.
If the birthday boy or his parents didn’t want to invite these kids, they should have sent the invitations by post or delivered them some other way. You can’t have a classroom being used to humiliate certain children.
It seems to me that the parents are small-minded, vindictive fuckers who are passing on their miserable ways to their child.
July 1st, 2008
Fair enough Bock, and IF the parents had set up the school to take the hit, it has backfired spectacularly as they’ve certainly managed to put their kid in a far more embarrassing spotlight. That’s still assuming they made him hand out the invites in the classroom and instructed him to ignore his two foes. Sure he could have posted them, but it’s a party for 8-year-olds, and behind it all, are we certain that he was not the one who decided to hold back the invites from his two “enemies”. The parents may not have known any different and just gave him a batch of cards to distribute assuming everyone in class was to get one. It’s hardly a swanky affair with a guest list and caterers (good thing it wasn’t an Irish Communion Party, but I digress)
If this goes to court and the birthday kid is forced to invite the other two all that proves is that the State now interferes in playground politics. A child can no longer decide who is and isn’t a friend? That smacks of PC gone mad. Will their parents still take them to a party knowing they are not wanted there, with a certain guarantee of ridicule from the other children awaiting them?. And if this is about “human rights“ then where stand the rights of the child to invite who the hell he wants to his party.
Worse still though, it makes a mockery of serious Human rights’ violations. Being interned, beaten and tortured is a violation of human rights. Not getting an invite to a birthday party is hardly comparable.
True it is not a nice experience for any child whether this act of vindictiveness was carried out on the childs or parents part, but we know how cruel kids can be when it comes to politics of the classroom. If the parents put him up to it then for shame but it should be kept in proportion even at that.
Kids are usually far better than adults at working out their differences in a few days or weeks - they move on, they’re very busy people who don’t tend to bear grudges for too long.
However when adults and the State start making a mountain out of a molehill they might just turn these youngsters into bitter people a lot sooner than life will.
July 1st, 2008
I don’t think the school give a shit who he invites to his party. They just don’t want him pulling that stunt in the classroom. There will be no court case forcing the kid to invite the others to his party.
Convert it to an adult situation. if a colleague used your workplace to ostentatiously hand out invitations inviting all but one or two people, it could be quite properly construed as bullying. An employer would have to act if a complaint was made.
If someone did it to me, I’d be offended, right up to the moment I kicked them in the nuts.