Thank you, Chris. It's not an argument I particularly want to get into, but I
had been wondering whether to post a small message saying 'silence doesn't mean
consent'.
I think we need to distinguish between being careful about current usage, and
denying the integrity of past usage. It doesn't make sense to alter what was
written in a different age and climate of opinion to make it fit with today's
thinking. But to many women now, inclusive language does make a difference, and
any clumsiness is a result of  lack of skill in the writer, not the concern
itself.
Liz

Chris Willis wrote:

> Hi!
>
> >Worse than this is the assault on language by feminists and their male
> >fellow travellers, who are trying to abolish the word 'man' and 'mankind'.
>
> Hope no-one minds my pointing out that this is a misunderstanding.  What
> we're trying to do is ensure the correct use of these words. There was some
> very interesting work done by linguistics experts a few years ago, which
> established that the use of "man" to mean "humanity" led to a whole host of
> misconceptions, and was particularly confusing for children.  It's nothing
> to do with political correctness - it's to do with using language
> accurately.
>
> On a lighter note, the daftest example I've seen of the inaccurate use of
> the term "man" was in a Magic Circle newsletter, which proudly announced
> that at some kind of trade fair, their stand had been "manned" by two women!
>
> And I agree that political correctness can be a nightmare - trying to
> discuss "Kim" with a multi-racial, multi-cultural class was a bit of a
> minefield, but we got a good discussion going in the end!  Many thanks to
> Michael for sending me Aung San Suu Kyi's piece on it, which helped
> immensely.
>
> Happy New Year everybody!
>
> All the best
> Chris
>
> =========================================
> Chris Willis
> English Dept
> Birkbeck College
> Malet Street
> London WC1E 7HX
>
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.chriswillis.freeserve.co.uk/
> =========================================
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dr Aidan Rankin <[log in to unmask]>
> To: Jeffery D. Lewins <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 28 December 1999 17:06
> Subject: Re: poltical correctness
>
> >Dear Jeffery
> >
> >I entirely agree with you about this most insidious form of 'political
> >correctness'.  Bleeping out words does no service to the people it is
> >supposed to protect and is a way of falsifying history familiar to
> communist
> >and fascist totalitarians.  PC is not really about helping individuals at
> >all, for its advocates do not see the individual, but place him in an
> >arbitrarily defined group.  I recently reviewed for the TLS a book by Roy
> >Kerridge called The Story of Black History.  He describes the way in which
> >people who came to Britain from the Caribbean saw themselves, quite
> rightly,
> >as British, and were proud of their contribution to the war effort.  Their
> >children had left-wing teachers who encouraged them to think of themselves
> >as 'black' and to regard anything British as alien and oppressive.  This
> >form of institutionalised racism, as much as more traditional types of
> >prejudice, has kept black Britons down.
> >
> >Worse than this is the assault on language by feminists and their male
> >fellow travellers, who are trying to abolish the word 'man' and 'mankind'.
> >This absurd nonsense has a lot of support in academia, and the result is
> >unreadable, limp-wristed prose.  I cannot help thinking that there is an
> >unconscious motive for this: a castrated language, after all, reflects a
> >society that has lost its sense of direction and purpose.
> >
> >Over the past few months I have been writing some articles for The Times
> >(Comment section) in which I debunk some of the revered bovines [a.k.a.
> >Sacred Cows] of political correctness.  Far be it from me to promote my own
> >work, but I feel I can share my latest one - in today's paper - with you
> and
> >others on the Mailbase.  For I think it most likely that Kipling would
> agree
> >with the points I make about the armed forces, 'Europe' and the superiority
> >of human responsibilities to human rights.
> >
> >Best Wishes - and Happy New Century.
> >
> >Aidan Rankin
> >***
> >Aidan Rankin
> >'Set up to guard against tyranny and torture, the
> >European Court of Human Rights is now an apologist for
> >deviance and sadistic crime'
> >There is a spectre haunting Britain in Europe: the spectre of "human
> >rights". Or rather,
> >the debasement of human rights, their reduction to a wish-list of truculent
> >demands.
> >The phrase human rights, once associated with the heroism of Soviet
> >dissidents, the
> >Czech "underground" and the Polish Solidarity union, is now hijacked by
> >every
> >fashionable politically correct cause. The confusion of human rights with
> >elitist
> >liberalism presents a new threat to freedom and a new form of social
> >injustice.
> >Next year we shall mark the 50th anniversary of the European Convention on
> >Human
> >Rights. As a founder member of the Council of Europe, Britain was one of
> the
> >first
> >signatories and the convention is soon to be part of British law. Drawn up
> >in the
> >aftermath of war and the Holocaust, the convention enshrines basic
> freedoms:
> >freedom
> >of speech, religion and association; freedom to lead a private life and
> >freedom to think.
> >Through the European Court of Human Rights, the convention upholds
> >democratic
> >values. It is the friend to the little man, protecting him from bullying
> big
> >government or
> >corporate greed.
> >That is the theory. A beautiful theory, too, but like socialism, so
> >different in practice
> >from the grand design. The European Court did play a positive role in
> >British politics
> >once, in the late 1970s, when it established the individual's right not to
> >join a union.
> >This protected working-class people from being forced to conform in ways
> >that the
> >privileged would never accept. But now the court is a bastion of bien
> >pensant
> >privilege. Far from protecting ordinary people, it insults their instincts
> >and values. Set
> >up to guard against tyranny and torture, it is now an apologist for
> >politicised deviance
> >and sadistic crime.
> >Two recent rulings against Britain by the court have more in common than at
> >first
> >appears. They are the lifting of the ban on gays in the Forces and the view
> >that James
> >Bulger's killers did not get a fair trial. In both cases a liberal-elitist
> >view of the world
> >prevails. The gay lobby is articulate, powerful and rich, and rich enough
> to
> >buy
> >"rights". The serviceman who does not want open homosexuals as officers and
> >comrades in arms has no access to money or power, and therefore no
> "rights".
> >Similarly those who champion murderous children have access to
> >well-connected
> >London lawyers and favoured organisations such as Liberty. James Bulger's
> >mother,
> >Denise, is a working-class woman with no such contacts. Rights have become
> >commodities, bought by the few at the expense of the many.
> >In both instances, there was a case to answer. Homosexual servicemen should
> >be free
> >from cruel interrogation. Children, even murderous ones, should be tried in
> >humane
> >conditions. That is not the same as to say, as the court does, that sexual
> >orientation is
> >equivalent to "race, origin or colour". Nor should it strip the Home
> >Secretary of his
> >limited power, vested in him by voters,, to affect the sentencing of
> >dangerous
> >criminals. The court's objection to the Home Secretary's role is based on a
> >refusal to
> >engage with the British political system, with its tradition of balance
> >between elected
> >representatives and appointed officials.
> >The cult of narrowly defined "rights" is creating a society of spoilt
> >children who ask
> >not what they can do for their country but what their country can do for
> >them. That is
> >the opposite of the mature citizenship envisaged by the convention. Fifty
> >years on,
> >perhaps it is time to go back to first principles. For when we think of
> >human
> >responsibilities, the cases cited above look very different. The
> >responsibility to be
> >tolerant is balanced by the responsibility to be discreet. Responsibility
> to
> >child-criminals is balanced by responsibility to their victims.
> >A British "declaration of human responsibilities" would restore compromise,
> >decency
> >and fair play. It would provide an alternative to abstract, continental
> law.
> >What better
> >task for an Opposition in search of big ideas and wishing to reconnect with
> >the British
> >people?
> >
> >[log in to unmask]
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Jeffery D. Lewins <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> >Date: Thursday, December 23, 1999 09:13
> >Subject: poltical correctness
> >
> >
> >>A colleague has sent me this quote from the UK paper The Telegraph.
> >>
> >>"20th December 1999
> >>
> >>The Editor
> >>
> >>The Telegraph
> >>
> >>Independent Television recently screened that wonderful film 'The Dam
> >>Busters', made in 1954 and starring Richard Todd as Guy Gibson VC and
> >>Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis. Guy Gibson had a pet dog called
> >>'Nigger'. Throughout the film, everytime the dog's name was mentioned, it
> >>was bleeped out. All other references to the dog's name were censored.
> Even
> >>the codeword for the successful breaching of the Mohne dam, which was
> >>'Niggwe', was bleeped out, thereby leading to utter confusion to anyone
> who
> >>did not know the story. Whilst I am fully sensitiive to the use of suc
> >>words in current speech, I have to ask whether this is not the start of a
> >>new form of political correctness, in which all old films (and even books)
> >>will be banned or revised to accord with modern standards ?  Watch out
> >>Shakespeare and Dickens."
> >>
> >>To which I think we must add:
> >>                Rudyard Kipling
> >>
> >>Jeffery Lewins
> >>
> >>
> >>from Jeffery Lewins
> >>Magdalene College &
> >>Engineering Department
> >>Cambridge CB3 0AG UK
> >>[log in to unmask]
> >>
> >>
> >
> >



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