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Highlands Today

What's in a (politically correct) name?

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By Norm Cukras | Highlands Today

Published: October 24, 2009

Before political correctness we had colorful names for people in our fairly ethnically diverse school and neighborhood, most of which I can't even mention in this column.

I grew up with an evil (in a child's perspective) brother who was five years older than I. One day he decided to taunt me by saying I had "lobes." I had visions of being ostracized by society and banned from school because of my affliction. When I hurried home to my mother for solace (mothers have to comfort you regardless of your infirmaries, it's in their bylaws) she informed me that everyone had lobes; even my devil's offspring brother. My first thought was what a long childhood I had ahead of me if I was going to have to endure such trauma from every word I didn't know the meaning of.

There was this woman who lived on our street we called "Crazy Mary." She lived in her own little world. She'd walk up and down the street clutching her purse and talking to some imaginary being. We never bothered her but amongst ourselves we referred to her as Crazy Mary. I guess today we'd have to say something like, "Have you seen that special woman who walks down the street clutching her purse and talking to someone only she can see?"

Regardless of the paring down of offensive words as defined by this non-existent Committee for Political Correctness nothing is going change significantly.

The female gender

I was advised recently that today members of the female gender prefer to be called women instead of ladies. It was shortly after that that I gave up making public speeches. I felt uncomfortable beginning a speech by saying, "Good evening women and gentlemen." I also found it strange walking into a group and saying, "Hello women." Even in a restaurant when I ask where our girl (waitress) might be I'm admonished, "She's a woman." So more and more I'm becoming a recluse so as not to risk committing some verbal social blunder. I guess that's why addressing everyone by "hey" is becoming so popular. Until the Committee for Political Correctness decides that "hey" is a derogatory term used by an obscure aboriginal African tribe we're free to use it to greet one another.

I'm a staunch supporter of women in high places, however I have formed a protest group of one that refuses to address a woman as an actor. I'm completely baffled as to the drive by actresses insisting that they are actors. They want to be called actors and yet they compete for the Best Actress awards at the Oscars and Emmys shows. Come on women, it's one or the other.

Out of the mouths of …

My 4-year-old great granddaughter has grabbed on to a someday-to-become offensive term by referring to people she doesn't like as "losers." She didn't get that from my side of the family. Those on my side point at people and mumble, "She (or he) has lobes."

I guess that loser could apply to people who walk down the street clutching their purse and talking to someone only they can see.

If we were to remove from the dictionary those words that could be adapted as derogatory we'd end up with a mighty thin pamphlet. I'll risk being admonished for using the M word but look at midgets: they want to be called "little people." Why? I'm not sure. If you look up little people in a thesaurus you find reference to elves and fairies.

And I can't help but wonder why the blonds of the world haven't united in protest over dumb blond jokes. They are offensive. They imply that light locks somehow allow aliens to drain common sense out of those women.

On a rather humorous recent episode of "Monk" there was a fanatical group of UFO believers who were chasing Monk because they thought the detective had an alien encounter. "I'm being chased by Internet People," he said of the group.

Hey Adrian, I'm offended. I use the Internet too.

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