Political Correctness E-Book

Geoffrey Hughes

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: The Language Library
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 641

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Political Correctness "Geoffrey Hughes has brought together with great panache the very many manifestations of political correctness, both absurd and vicious, and shown how they express a single collective mind-set. His book establishes beyond doubt that there is such a phenomenon, that it has become dominant in our culture, and that it represents a growing tendency to censor public debate and to prevent people from questioning orthodoxies which we all know to be false." Roger Scruton, American Enterprise Institute "What a joy this book is! Hughes' study traces, with unflagging zest, the modern history of PC. Sumptuous in data, in judgment precise, this is the latest and fullest of Hughes' series on the social history of language." Walter Nash, Professor Emeritus, University of Nottingham Political Correctness is now an everyday phrase and part of the modern mindset. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but its own meaning constantly shifts. Its surprising origins have led to it becoming integrated into contemporary culture in ways that are both idealistic and ridiculous. Originally grounded in respect for difference and sensitivity to suffering, it has often become a distraction and even a silencer of genuine issues, provoking satire and parody. In this carefully researched, thought-provoking book, Geoffrey Hughes examines the trajectory of political correctness and its impact on public life. Exploring the origins, progress, content, and style of PC, Hughes' journey leads us through authors as diverse as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Swift; Philip Larkin, David Mamet, and J.M. Coetzee; from nursery rhymes to Spike Lee films. Focusing on the historical, semantic, and cultural aspects of political correctness, this outstanding and unique work will intrigue anyone interested in this ongoing debate.

Leseprobe

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Epigraphs

PART I: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND ITS ORIGINS

CHAPTER 1: DEFINING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Preamble and Rationale: Words and Ideas, Norms and Values

What is Political Correctness?

The Semantic Problems of Political Correctness

Ideals, Ideology, and Practice

Orthodoxy in Religion and Politics

Semantic and Lexical Changes

Norms and Normality

Stereotypes and Etymology

Difference

Taboo

Censorship

Conclusion

CHAPTER 2: THE ORIGINS AND THE DEBATE

Introduction

Origins of the Phrase

The Debate: Redefining Territories and Establishing Boundaries

The Canon and Multiculturalism

PART II: THE SEMANTIC ASPECT

CHAPTER 3: WORDS AND AUTHORITIES: DICTIONARIES AND LEXICOGRAPHERS

Words and Women

Usage Markers

Dictionary Omissions and Assessments of Currency

Political Correctness and Traditional Registers

Official and Unofficial Language

Buzzwords and Code Words

Newspeak

CHAPTER 4: THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORD FIELD

Introduction

Analysis

Conclusion

PART III: ZONES OF CONTROVERSY

CHAPTER 5: ISSUES OF RACE, NATIONALITY, AND DIFFERENCE

Introduction

Race, Ethnicity, and Identity

The Melting Pot

Colonialism

Colonial Perspectives

Principal Terms Used in Colonial Discourse

Stereotypes of the Colonial Mindset

The Conquest of the Americas

Terms for Foreigners and Others

Terms for Whites

Terms for Blacks

Color and Loyalty: Issues of Nativism

Racist Utterances

Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism

Hate Speech

CHAPTER 6: AGENDAS OLD AND NEW

Gender and Sexual Orientation

Class

Crime and Punishment

Disability and Illness

Addiction

Food, Eating Disorders, and Lookism

The Environment

Animal Rights

Religious Rituals and the War on Christmas

PART IV: CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL ISSUES

CHAPTER 7: POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE PAST

The Middle Ages

The Reformation: The Politics of Religious Conformity

Politics on the Renaissance Stage

The Age of Reason

The Victorian Era

CHAPTER 8: CULTURE

Literature and Ideology

Contentious Texts

Film

Popular Culture, Humor, and Satire

CONCLUSION: THE RIGHT THING TO DO? PROGRESSIVE ORTHODOXY, EMPTY CONVENTION, OR DOUBLE STANDARD?

Double Standards

The Efficacy and Currency of Politically Correct Language

Levels of Discourse

The New Morality

Bibliography

Author and Subject Index

Word Index

THE LANGUAGE LIBRARY

Series editor: David Crystal

The Language Library was created in 1952 by Eric Partridge, the great etymologist and lexicographer, who from 1966 to 1976 was assisted by his coeditor Simeon Potter. Together they commissioned volumes on the traditional themes of language study, with particular emphasis on the history of the English language and on the individual linguistic styles of major English authors. In 1977 David Crystal took over as editor, and The Language Library now includes titles in many areas of linguistic enquiry.

The most recently published titles in the series include:

Ronald Carter and Walter NashSeeing Through LanguageFlorian CoulmasThe Writing Systems of the WorldDavid CrystalA Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth EditionJ. A. CuddonA Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, Fourth EditionViv EdwardsMultilingualism in the English-speaking WorldNicholas EvansDying Words: Endangered Languages and What They Have to Tell UsAmalia E. GnanadesikanThe Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the InternetGeoffrey HughesA History of English WordsGeoffrey HughesPolitical Correctness: A History of Semantics and CultureWalter NashJargonRoger ShuyLanguage CrimesGunnel TottieAn Introduction to American EnglishRonald WardhaughInvestigating LanguageRonald WardhaughProper English: Myths and Misunderstandings about Language

This edition first published 2010© 2010 Geoffrey Hughes

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hughes, Geoffrey.Political correctness: a history of semantics and culture/Geoffrey Hughes.p. cm. — (The language library)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-4051-5278-5 (hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4051-5279-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Political correctness. 2. Communication and culture. 3. Semantics. I. Title.BD175.5.P65H84 2009306.01—dc222009012681

To the memory of George Orwell,who understood political correctnessin so many guises

Preface

This book aims to do three things. It studies the origins, progress, content and style of political correctness from the opening salvos of the academic debate in the United States to its recent global manifestations. These have proved to be protean, some would say “hydra-headed,” covering all manner of agendas and linguistically embedded prejudices. For readers now familiar with these often dour semantic battles, I thought it would be interesting to bring in other dimensions. One is to show that political correctness of one sort or another has been a feature of English society for centuries, certainly since the English Reformation. The other is, broadly, to introduce the stimulating and varied evidence of culture, literature, thought, and images from “the absorbing past,” as Lord Acton called it.

The campus debate showed academics with their gloves off, some of them defending unexpected corners. As the proposals for sanitizing the language, and therefore by implication the public mind, took on a Swiftian earnestness, a new (or supposedly new) species, the “public intellectual” emerged from the Ivory Tower to engage in, variously, the Battle of the Books, the Culture Wars, and the nature, function, and soul of the university. Several of these issues had, of course, been raised and debated by those Victorian sages Matthew Arnold, John Stuart Mill, Cardinal Newman, and Thomas Carlyle. But now institutions of higher learning formulated speech codes, designed to suppress or inhibit offensive language. Contrary codes were also at work, in stigmatizing acronyms like the recycled WASP and the newer DWEM (standing for “dead white European male,” thus both racist and sexist). Their currency remained unchecked. Double standards proliferated, especially in the matter of “difference”: it was acceptable to publish research findings demonstrating racial differences in health or sporting ability, but not in IQ scores and college admissions. What was increasingly called “PC” seemed to be the kind of social engineering which springs from the best of intentions, but can bring out less healthy Puritanical impulses in a society, as did Prohibition, the Communist witch-hunt and the abortion issue.

Who started it? Some, notably Doris Lessing, saw political correctness as the natural continuum of the Communist party line. Others saw “political correctness” as a label systematically deployed by those on the right to discredit views challenging the status quo. Who was right? Or were both right? Even more mysterious than the source was the efficacy and the acceptance of political correctness. Comparisons with “Orwellian” thought control and semantic engineering were made from the start, but where was the Politburo? Artificial formulas like physically challenged, differently abled, sex worker, and numerous other oddities, some being bureaucratic coinages, gained a certain official currency but proved unsustainable in normal discourse. Most strangely, even from the early 1990s when the debate was in full swing, virtually everybody disowned political correctness. It had become a code language without a visible champion. Since then it has been heavily criticized as “The most powerful mental tyranny in what we call the free world” (Lessing, 2004). Is this an overstatement by Lessing or a wise warning from an experienced combatant?

What about the world before it was “free”? Literature illuminates the topic in many fascinating ways. Our greatest dramatist wrote some plays which uphold traditional ideas of authority, but others which interrogate and even subvert this notion. “Family values” proves another highly problematic concept in his work, for his insights into sibling rivalry are deeply disturbing. Many of the agendas of political correctness surface in his plays, notably prejudice against the most conspicuous outsiders, Jews, blacks, the disabled, even the Puritans. A good case can be made for the view that from about 1600 Shakespeare seems intentionally to have written plays which deal with irresolvable moral and political problems. Nor was he alone: “I think hell’s a fable” was just one provocative notion floated by Marlowe in Dr Faustus. The focus of criticism has also changed from the personal to the political: increasing emphasis on colonialism has radically reinterpreted plays like Othello and The Tempest. A recent production had the final words of Prospero’s Epilogue, “As you from crimes would pardoned be,/Let your indulgence set me free,” addressed not to the audience, as the context indicates, but to Caliban.

The time line and the global range can be extended. Two centuries before Shakespeare, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, which was created in a supposedly harmonious social setting of “quiet hierarchies” (Robertson, 1963, p. 51), contains typical expressions of xenophobia, racism, sexism, ageism and lookism, even vestiges of the class struggle. A century after Shakespeare’s death, Alexander Pope boldly criticized “The right divine of kings to govern wrong,” while Jonathan Swift satirized all manner of institutions. They have had many distinguished followers. The structure of the book accordingly accommodates these historical and literary dimensions. In addition, South Africa required some coverage, because the nation has been in a unique political and social time warp, only recently emerging from apartheid to deal with the issues of democracy, national identity, affirmative action and various forms of empowerment in a multicultural society.

Is the world “free” now, in terms of reasonable people without a clear political agenda being able to speak their minds on matters of public importance? Or has the notion of what is “offensive” or “unacceptable” or “inappropriate” or “racist” now taken on such broad and intrusive dimensions that open debate on contentious issues is an impossibility? Has political correctness succeeded in redefining morality by the introduction of the new concept of “ethical living”? Has it succeeded in eliminating prejudice? Or has it enabled some to be quicker to “take offense” where none was intended, forcing others into elaborate stratagems to avoid “giving offense”?

Political correctness is a serious matter, grounded in suffering, prejudice, and difference, and has certainly made everyone consider the plight of others, giving a new emphasis to respect. But it has also provoked a great deal of satire, irony, and humor, which have their place in a study of this kind. Some of it is unexpected: we have become used to Jews and blacks telling jokes about themselves and reclaiming ethnic slurs; but now we have jokes being told about cripples, by cripples who insist on using that designation. Consequently, the earlier tendency to see things in dichotomous terms of plain black and white is increasingly complicated.

The problem of finishing the book was similar to those faced in my previous attempts at a history of swearing, since history does not stop (obviously), and political correctness continues to influence our behavior in manifold ways, virtually every week bringing some new episode or outrage. I began to feel the force of Lytton Strachey’s brilliant paradox in the Preface to Eminent Victorians: “The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.” Furthermore, mine was a “hot topic.” Of previous books people would say, “How interesting!” Now several asked, “Will it get you into trouble?”

There was also the problem of what to call it. Most of the early PC titles were melodramatic, relying on “War” and “Police,” words which have been rather overdone. Among many suggestions were: “The Rise and Fall of Meaning,” “Shifting Agendas,” “Conflicting Agendas,” “Exploring the Unacceptable,” “Zones of Controversy,” “Mere Words,” “Verbal Mine-fields,” and “What Can One Say?” In the end a simple descriptive title seemed best.

I must express my gratitude to several people who helped shape the work. David Crystal shrewdly perceived a structure that was lacking in the somewhat inchoate first draft. Danielle Descoteaux has been an ideal editor, supportive, enthusiastic, but tactfully critical. Also in the Boston team, Julia Kirk gave excellent editorial support. The final text was greatly improved by the meticulous and sensitive editing of Jenny Roberts. I was greatly assisted by my good friend and colleague Peter Knox-Shaw, who read the first draft and made valuable suggestions; by the assistance of the indefatigable Tanya Barben of the Rare Books Department at the University of Cape Town Library; and by my dear son Conrad, who enlightened me in unfamiliar areas of popular culture. My beloved wife Letitia has, as always, been an endlessly patient reader and partner.

Geoffrey Hughes

Acknowledgments

The author and publisher would like to thank the following persons and institutions for permission to reproduce copyright material: Professor Bernth Lindfors for the image of the Hottentot “Apron”; AKG-Images for the film poster for D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation; Zapiro (Jonathan Shapiro) for the “African Renaissance Gallery”; the German National Museum, Nürnberg for the image of Five Opponents of Martin Luther; Steve Bell for the cartoon of Tony Blair and David Blunkett.

Epigraphs

Let her [Truth] and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter? (John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644)

He nevere yet no vileyne ne sayde,

In al his lyf unto no maner wight.

(He had never in his life said anything

Disrespectful to any kind of person.)

(Chaucer, Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, ll. 70–2)

MARIA:Sometimes he [Malvolio] is a kind of PuritanSIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK:O, if I thought that I’d beat him like a dog.SIR TOBY BELCH:What! For being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight?

(Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II, 3, ll. 153–5)

He was the great Hieroglyphick of Jesuitism, Puritanism, Quaqerism [sic] and of all the Isms from Schism. (“Hercalio Democritus,” Vision of Purgatory, 1680)

Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write… Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing. (John Adams, Liberty and Knowledge, 1765)

Clear your mind of cant. (Dr Johnson, Boswell’s Life of Johnson, 1791)

…the principle of free thought – not free thought for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought that we hate. (Justice Holmes, United States v. Schwimmer, 1929)

The most powerful mental tyranny in what we call the free world is Political Correctness. (Doris Lessing, “Censorship,” 2004)

True literature can exist only where it is created not by diligent and trustworthy officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics. (Yevgeny Zamyatin, “I am Afraid,” 1921)

PART I

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND ITS ORIGINS

CHAPTER 1

DEFINING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

Preamble and Rationale: Words and Ideas, Norms and Values

Political correctness became part of the modern lexicon and, many would say, part of the modern mind-set, as a consequence of the wide-ranging public debate which started on campuses in the United States from the late 1980s. Since nearly 50 percent of Americans go to college, the impact of the controversy was widespread. It was out of this ferment that most of the new vocabulary was generated or became current. However, political correctness is not one thing and does not have a simple history. As a concept it predates the debate and is a complex, discontinuous, and protean phenomenon which has changed radically, even over the past two decades. During just that time it has ramified from its initial concerns with education and the curriculum into numerous agendas, reforms, and issues concerning race, culture, gender, disability, the environment, and animal rights.

Linguistically it started as a basically idealistic, decent-minded, but slightly Puritanical intervention to sanitize the language by suppressing some of its uglier prejudicial features, thereby undoing some past injustices or “leveling the playing fields” with the hope of improving social relations. It is now increasingly evident in two opposing ways. The first is the expanding currency of various key words (to be listed shortly), some of a programmatic nature, such as diversity, organic, and multiculturalism. Contrariwise, it has also manifested itself in speech codes which suppress prejudicial language, disguising or avoiding certain old and new taboo topics. Most recently it has appeared in behavioral prohibitions concerning the environment and violations of animal rights. As a result of these transitions it has become a misnomer, being concerned with neither politics nor correctness as those terms are generally understood.

Political correctness inculcates a sense of obligation or conformity in areas which should be (or are) matters of choice. Nevertheless, it has had a major influence on what is regarded as “acceptable” or “appropriate” in language, ideas, behavioral norms, and values. But “doing the right thing” is, of course, an oversimplification. There is an antithesis at the core of political correctness, since it is liberal in its aims but often illiberal in its practices: hence it generates contradictions like positive discrimination and liberal orthodoxy. In addition, it has surprising historical and literary antecedents, surfacing in different forms and phases in Anglo-Saxon and global culture.

Although this book is called a “history,” it is not really possible to write a conventional sequential history incorporating all these themes, of which there are basically six: political, literary, educational, gender, cultural, and behavioral. This is a large, interesting, but unwieldy package. The choice of “semantics” in the title rather than the broader and more familiar “language” is intentional, mainly because much of the debate was and continues to be about the changing of names, what are commonly known as “Orwellian” substitutions, and many of the practices which – rightly or wrongly – have given “semantics” a questionable name in popular parlance. Semantics (the study of meaning) is, of course, a respectable branch of linguistics unassociated with this practice, and much of the book is taken up with analyzing the semantic changes undergone by individual terms and in the evolution of word-fields.

Any discussion of political correctness necessarily involves its inseparable obverse, political incorrectness, just as “A History of Manners” would perforce involve bad manners, and “A History of Propaganda” would involve not only the techniques employed by propagandists, but the reactions of those being influenced and the strategies of counterpropaganda. For, just as people are suspicious of propaganda and resist it, so the institution of new taboos, especially against referring to personal features of size, color, addiction, and so on invokes feelings, even charges of censorship. These pressures provoke a counterreaction of satire, opportunistic defiance, and outrages, especially in popular culture. These reactions are covered in chapter 8. For all these reasons, the topic cannot be simply reduced to the standard template of “a definition,” a “story,” and a “conclusion.” This complexity in part explains this book’s structure.

The origins are in many ways the strangest feature. “Political Correctness is the natural continuum of the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.” So wrote Doris Lessing in the Sunday Times (May 10, 1992), continuing in this vein in her trenchant essay “Censorship” (2004), which is quoted among the epigraphs above. She was unambiguous and certainly right: political correctness first emerged in the diktats of Mao Tse-Tung, then chairman of the Chinese Soviet Republic, in the 1930s. But over half a century later it had mutated, rematerializing in a totally different environment, in an advanced secular capitalist society in which freedom of speech had been underwritten by the Constitution for two centuries, and in American universities, of all places. As Christopher Hitchens acutely observed: “For the first time in American history, those who call for an extension of rights are also calling for an abridgement of speech” (in Dunant, 1994, pp. 137–8).

Far from being a storm in an academic inkwell, political correctness became a major public issue engaged in by a whole variety of participants including President George Bush (briefly), public intellectuals, major academics, and journalists of all hues and persuasions. Some claim that the debate was a manufactured rather than a natural phenomenon, and that political correctness started as a chimera or imaginary monster invented by those on the Right of the political spectrum to discredit those who wished to change the status quo. These matters are taken up in chapter 2 “The Origins and the Debate.” The fact is that the debate certainly took place. Exchanges were often acrimonious, focusing on numerous general issues of politics, ideology, race, gender, sexual orientation, culture, the curriculum, freedom of expression and its curtailment and so on. All of these will be discussed and developed.

This work attempts a detailed semantic analysis of how the resources of the language have been deployed, especially in forms of semantic engineering and the exploitation of different registers, both to formulate the new agendas, values, and key words of political correctness and to subvert them. A whole new semantic environment has come into being, through creation, invention, co-option, borrowing, and publicity: a representative sample of this new world of words includes lookism, phallocratic, other, significant other, sex worker, multicultural, herstory, disadvantaged, homophobic, waitron, wimmin, differently abled, to Bork, physically challenged, substance abuse, fattist, Eurocentric, Afrocentric, demographics, issue, carbon footprint, glass ceiling, pink plateau, and first people, as well as code abbreviations like DWEM, PWA, HN, and neo-con.

These are not simply new words, in the way that Shakespeare’s incar-nadine, procreant, exsufflicate, be-all and end-all, unmanned, assassination, and yesterdays were original forms four centuries ago. They are more like Orwell’s artificial coinages in Newspeak, for instance, thoughtcrime, joy-camp, and doublethink. Many are of a completely different order of novelty, opaqueness, and oddity, several of a character aptly described by the doughty Dr Johnson two centuries ago as “scarce English.” The reaction of the uninitiated, and many of the educated, to this strange new galaxy of word formations or, some would say, deformations, is like that described by Edward Phillips in his New World of Words: “Some people if they spy but a hard word are as much amazed as if they had met with a Hobgoblin” (cited in Baugh, 1951, p. 260). That was in 1658, when new words of classical origin were still not welcomed as potential denizens, but rather regarded with suspicion as dubious immigrants disturbing “the King’s English” (as it has been called since 1553).

Language theoretically belongs to all, but is often changed by only a few, many of them anonymous. Resentment at interference or sudden changes in the language has a long history. It started in the sixteenth century with the Inkhorn Controversy, a contretemps about the introduction of alien classical vocabulary, or hostility at semantic innovation of the kind Phillips satirized. In the long run most of these “hard words” as they were originally called, have been accepted. But it has been a very long run. Political correctness is still a relatively new phenomenon, and the serious or general acceptance of these words is still a matter of debate.

Let us briefly consider a fairly recent focused linguistic intervention, the attempt by feminists to alter or enlarge the stock of personal pronouns and to feminize agent nouns like chairman in order to diminish the dominance of the male gender, traditionally upheld in the grammatical dictum that “the male subsumes the female.” Proposals for forms such as s/he were successful in raising consciousness, but produced few long-term survivals. Forms like wimmin and herstory became objects of satire, while the extensive replacement of man by person aroused some strong reactions: “I resent this ideological intrusion and its insolent dealings with our mother (perhaps I should say ‘parent’) tongue,” wrote Roger Scruton (1990, p. 118). Scruton’s mocking parody “parent tongue” is a response we shall see replicated many times in reactions to politically correct language. Nevertheless, some new forms like chairperson and spokesperson have managed to establish themselves.

Another comparison can be made with radical political discourse. Communism attempted to establish a whole new ideological discourse by means of neologisms like proletariate, semantic extensions like bourgeois, and by co-opting words like imperialist and surplus. Hard-line Communists still call each other “comrade” and refer to “the workers,” “the collective,” “capital,” and the “party line,” terms which are regarded by outsiders (who now form the majority) with irony and humor. For the days and locales when Communists could impose semantic norms on populations have long disappeared.

There are three characteristics which make political correctness a unique sociolinguistic phenomenon. Unlike previous forms of orthodoxy, both religious and political, it is not imposed by some recognized authority like the Papacy, the Politburo, or the Crown, but is a form of semantic engineering and censorship not derivable from one recognized or definable source, but a variety. There is no specific ideology, although it focuses on certain inequalities and disadvantaged people in society and on correcting prejudicial attitudes, more especially on the demeaning words which express them. Politically correct language is the product and formulation of a militant minority which remains mysteriously unlocatable. It is not the spontaneous creation of the speech community, least of all any particular deprived sector of it. Disadvantaged groups, such as the deaf, the blind, or the crippled (to use the traditional vocabulary), do not speak for themselves, but are championed by other influential public voices.

In these respects political correctness has a very different dynamic from the earlier high-profile advocates of, say, feminism or black consciousness in the USA. The feminists of the second wave, such as Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Gloria Steinem, and Susan Sontag, were highly articulate, individual, and outspoken controversialists who did not always agree with each other, characteristics shared by Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X. By contrast, the anonymous agenda-manipulators of political correctness are more difficult to identify. These features make the conformity to political correctness the more mysterious.

Paradoxically, political correctness manifested itself rapidly and most strongly, not in political parties, but on university campuses; not in the closed societies of Eastern Europe, but in free Western societies, especially in America, the only country in the world where freedom of speech is a constitutional right. Much play was accordingly made about the rights enshrined in the First Amendment, their “ownership” and their proper application.

In addition to these contemporary issues, it is important to recognize both a historical and a moral dimension, that is, to be aware that political correctness is not an exclusively modern manifestation. Accordingly, it is enlightening to consider some earlier forms of changing orthodoxies and their semantic correlatives, as well as the moral imperatives which these changing orthodoxies have generated. In many ways there has been a continuing dialectic between political orthodoxy and dissent since the sixteenth century, virtually since the invention of printing. Reflection shows that political correctness of one sort or another has been a feature of English society for centuries, certainly since the English Reformation, the first major political change which was not an invasion.

Furthermore, literature illuminates the topic in many fascinating ways. Our greatest dramatist, for instance, wrote some plays which uphold traditional ideas of authority and the Divine Right, but others which interrogate this notion. “Family values” proves another highly problematic concept in his work, for his insights into sibling rivalry are deeply disturbing. Very few love relationships are free of hostility, jealousy, or tragic interference. A good case can be made for the view that from about 1600 Shakespeare seems intentionally to have written plays which deal with irresolvable moral and political problems. Major issues are not buried in the subplot or in speeches of minor characters. No audience could fail to be disturbed or provoked by a whole series of resounding utterances, such as Hamlet’s misogynist generalization “Frailty, thy name is woman,” or Shylock’s question “Hath not a Jew eyes?,” or Falstaff’s cynical view that “honor” is “a mere word,” or by the bastard Edmund’s dismissive comment on heredity: “fine word, legitimate!” A mere century later Alexander Pope was to mock “the right divine of kings to govern wrong,” while two centuries before Shakespeare, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, created in a supposedly harmonious medieval social setting, contains biting satires of the ecclesiastical establishment and many unexpected expressions of xenophobia, racism, sexism, ageism, and lookism, even vestiges of the class struggle. Part IV accordingly seeks to accommodate these historical and literary dimensions.

In addition, the new South Africa offers a fruitful example of the semantic and social problems of “normalization” after the iniquities of apartheid. The nation has been in a political and social time warp, only recently emerging from the agendas of colonialism, white domination, and racial separation to deal with the issues of democracy, national identity, affirmative action, and various forms of empowerment in a multicultural society. These aspects are covered in this chapter, in chapter 5, and in the Conclusion.

What is Political Correctness?

This fundamental question has become increasingly difficult to answer as new agendas have materialized. Most people would frame answers along the lines of “It means not using words like nigger, queer, or cripple,” or “It means showing respect to all,” or “It means accepting and promoting diversity.” These answers are adequate, but cover only the main issues, by means of proscription (the first) or prescription (the second and third). The emphases on offensive language, prejudiced attitudes, and insulting behavior towards the marginalized are central. The question is less easily answered in a comprehensive way, as the historical précis has suggested. Specific answers are supplied by verbal definition, by identifying role models, by description of approved or bad practices, or assumptions about proper and improper behavior.

Leaving aside the theoretical and social aspects for the time being, let us briefly consider the epigraphs at the beginning of the book. It is striking that the oldest, from Chaucer’s portrait of a medieval nobleman, describes a role model, an ideal of behavior (that of never saying anything disrespectful to anyone, regardless of status) which conforms with the best notions of political correctness. Chaucer evidently regards this aspect of his “verray, parfit gentil knyght” as both admirable and unusual. The exchange from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night shows us two very different knights, one idiotic, the other decadent. Although the comedy is set in Illyria, the issue is highly relevant. Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s antagonism towards Malvolio as a suspected Puritan (“I’d beat him like a dog”) has a contemporary edge of intolerance, which Sir Toby Belch’s critical reproof rightly shows to be mindless: “For being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear knight?” Being tolerant towards the Puritans, who wished to impose their strict religious régime on all, who hated the theaters and eventually succeeded in closing them, required an act of considerable charity. But Sir Toby, for all his faults, has a balanced, laissez faire attitude. The kind of sectarian extremism which lay ahead is shown in the scathing references to “Jesuitism, Puritanism and Quaqerism [Quakerism] and of all the Isms from Schism” in the remarkable quotation from 1680. From a different perspective, the quotations from Milton, John Adams, and Justice Holmes show a faith, indeed an insistence, on open debate and in “the principle of free thought,” attitudes which are often lacking from modern political and educational forums, a point which Doris Lessing argues strongly. Indeed “free thought” and “free speech” are often seen to be curtailed by political correctness. Dr Johnson’s famous dictum reminds us that though “cant” is now largely obsolete as a word, the plausible hypocrisy which it denotes still thrives, and is too often encountered.

The question could be put another way: what do speech codes, Chairman Mao, eating foie gras, the letters of Philip Larkin, Tintin in the Congo, George Orwell’s 1984, wearing fur, shock jocks, McCarthyism, Borat, AIDS jokes, Christmas cards, the films of Spike Lee, ethnic slurs, and The Simpsons have in common? At first sight, not much. Discussion of these topics will show that political correctness and its obverse, political incorrectness, are more easily recognized than defined, and that both appear in manifold forms.

Yet even this list is by no means exhaustive. A survey of instances culled from the British National Corpus (BNC) shows the phrase being applied to an extraordinary variety of entities, namely to individuals, culture, children’s literature, musical bands, the mixture of ethnic groups, even a lasagne, as well as to language. Many of the quotations come from press reports and analyses, some from book reviews, from novels and interviews. “Politically Correct movies are fairy tales” was an early comment in 1984 by Joel Schumacher, a film producer, in The Scotsman. Most of the quotations in the BNC date from the early 1990s, for instance references to “Glenda Jackson, the Politically Correct actress” and to “Politically Correct feminism” (both from the Daily Telegraph, 1992). Another report comments: “Politically Correct language was the order of the day at the BASW [British Association of Social Workers] conference as the debates centred on gender issues” (Community Care, 1993). An interviewee in the Daily Express comments: “I have a very good Politically Correct feminist side and a very glamour-oriented attention-getting whorey side, and they clash.” These last three quotations show an equation of political correctness with feminism, an identification we shall encounter frequently. There is also, in British politics, an assumption that political correctness is a feature of the Left, seen in many quotations, such as: “Labour would preside over the entrenching of Political Correctness in the classroom” (Daily Telegraph, 1992). Many similar comments are recorded from 1992, the year of a general election. Socialist assumptions certainly seem to lie behind this item: “Another ruled that a grassy lawn was politically incorrect on the grounds that not all children have gardens” (The Scotsman).

Environmental issues appear, but in unexpected places: “Complaining that a recent photograph showed him with an unrecyclable styrofoam coffee cup, he denounced it as ‘politically incorrect’” (Daily Telegraph, 1992). Benny Hill is described as “the politically incorrect comedian” (Punch, 1992), while an observation is made that “The culture is politically incorrect, so violence gets cheered” (The Scotsman). A comment from Pilot magazine concludes: “but you have to be politically correct these days!” (1992). Others are less concessive: “Terms such as ‘faggot’ may be unacceptable to polite society, in this age of Political Correctness, but clearly nothing has altered what goes on the privacy of the popular conscience” (Daily Telegraph, 1992). In similar tone: “Even in an era of ‘Political Correctness’, and hypersensitivity over racial slights, Eskimo Pie has retained its name and its logo” (Daily Telegraph, 1992).

Two reports, both from The Scotsman in 1992, relate to children’s literature: “A survey of children’s authors by the writers’ group PEN suggests that publishers are not content merely with encouraging writers to be politically correct, but are actually censoring anything they feel to be politically incorrect.” The second reports: “Indeed publishers told PEN they were under pressure from schools, libraries and local authorities to be politically correct.” This aspect is discussed further under the “Censorship” section below. Fiction is a frequent candidate. “The First Wives Club is a very American book … in its fashionable Political Correctness: having taken revenge on their rich, white, middle aged husbands, the ex-wives find true love with, variously, a lesbian, an impoverished Puerto Rican lawyer, and a younger man” (Daily Telegraph, 1992). This last comment contains a clearly ironic observation on the “rich, white” husbands getting their just desserts, since the betrayed wives seek adventurous lives outside the bourgeois norms.

These topics are related to the previously listed aspects, namely: political, literary, educational, cultural, gender, and behavioral. Perhaps because many of the instances come from the early 1990s, they do not put much emphasis on later key aspects of political correctness, namely animal rights, colonialism, the environment, and AIDS. Many quotations identify an aspect of political correctness without defining it. It is merely asserted, for example, that various groups “… want a Labour win in order to impose Political Correctness” (Daily Telegraph, 1992). This practice clearly assumes that even then political correctness was recognizable in some way. We also notice that in all the early instances both “political” and “correctness” are capitalized.

What constitutes politically incorrect behavior? The characterization is not as simple as one would imagine, as the following table of “inappropriate” activities shows. These range from the serious to the trivial, covering linguistic modes, behavioral patterns, and lifestyle choices, and are designated by means of the symbols (yes) or (no) or ? (uncertain):

Inappropriate activitiesPolitically incorrectusing ethnic slursreligious swearingsexual swearing?pedophiliarapechauvinismsexismhomophobiapornography?blasphemyracismdomestic violence?cruelty to animalssmoking cigarettessmoking cannabiswearing fureating vealeating beef

Even granted that the simple categorization of “yes” or “no” is obviously somewhat crude, and that not everybody would agree with all the allocations, the degree of inconsistency is extraordinary. It shows a feature which we shall encounter in different categories and locales, that of double or variable standards. Thus in the category of swearing, only ethnic slurs qualify unambiguously. Religious swearing generally does not: a recent survey showed that the name of Jesus was familiar to the majority of British children, but as a swearword. Sexual swearing is divided along gender lines: bitch, cow, and cunt definitely qualify, although not in all cases, while fucker, bugger, and prick do not. Indeed, the British celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, especially notorious for his copious use of the word fuck, have achieved royal recognition. Feminists regard pornography as demeaning to women; most males do not. Under the category of blasphemy, The Life of Brian (1979) and Jerry Springer: The Opera (2005), grossly satirizing the life of Jesus, provoked protests, but not banning. Rejecting a subsequent appeal by Christian Voice against the Springer show, the Law Lords ruled that the appeal “does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance” (The Times, March 5, 2008). Less comprehensible was the attempt to invoke the blasphemy law against Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1989), discussed further in chapter 5 under “Islam.” It failed on the grounds that the law covers only Christianity, its personages and articles of belief. While it is understandable that homophobia should be regarded as politically incorrect, it seems extraordinary that pedophilia is not, certainly not with the same detestation. And where to place treason? Who knows?

A number of the listed “inappropriate activities” are illegal; some are merely bad manners. But their correlation with what is regarded as politically incorrect is not simple. Thus smoking in nondesignated areas or using ethnic slurs are punishable by law. Similarly, religious swearing or farting in company are unacceptable breaches of manners or decorum. Political correctness occupies a behavioral space between the two. As has been mentioned, it inculcates a sense of obligation to conform in some areas (such as chauvinism or wearing fur) which, some would argue, should be matters of choice. This creates problems in a free society. At the same time, no one is obliged to be politically correct. Consequently, charges of censorship or fascism, which are often made, have to be analyzed closely.

Definitions

It is customary to answer the broader question with a definition. Here is a selection:

Conformity to a body of liberal or radical opinion on social matters, characterized by the advocacy of approved views and the rejection of language and behaviour considered discriminatory or offensive. (Oxford Dictionary of New Words, 1997)

The most powerful mental tyranny in what we call the free world is Political Correctness, which is both immediately evident, and to be seen everywhere, and as invisible as a kind of poison gas, for its influences are often far from the source, manifesting as a general intolerance. (Doris Lessing, 2004)

Political Correctness is a concept invented by hard-rightwing forces to defend their right to be racist, to treat women in a degrading way and to be truly vile about gay people. They invent these people who are Politically Correct, with a rigid, monstrous attitude to life so they can attack them. But we have all had to learn to modify our language. That’s all part of being a human being. (Clare Short, Guardian, February 18, 1995)

As we can see here, and will see further in the argument, especially in chapter 2 and in Part II, there are various modes of definition. The first of these is authoritative and neutral, while the second and third are combative or tactical. Simply in terms of semantics, the first authority gives a balanced, referential account, using the key term “conformity,” while the second and third use the rhetorical strategy of highly emotive terms like “powerful mental tyranny,” “a kind of poison gas,” “hard-rightwing forces,” “truly vile,” and so on. Their subtext is of a war going on. Yet on closer examination, the first definition fudges the issue in various ways, by using “liberal or radical,” which have very different meanings, particularly in Britain and America; it also contains a series of begged questions arising from the terms conformity, approved, and considered – without identifying by whom.

Ideologically, the second and third explanations are, of course, diametrically opposed. Lessing derives political correctness from left-wing conformity which has bred “tyranny” and “general intolerance”; Short from a cynical right-wing stalking horse, “invented” to discredit liberal attitudes (liberal in the British sense of broad-minded, unprejudiced). But neither can truly identify the source, what Lessing in her previously cited quotation called “the party” and the “vigilantes” or what Short calls the “hard-rightwing forces,” to whom they attribute this curious sociolinguistic phenomenon.

The two explanations are not, however, mutually exclusive, in that a strict form of orthodoxy may be initially acceptable to its hard-line followers, then be satirized by outsiders, and finally come to be denounced by the majority as an intolerant infringement of personal liberty. Thus Puritanism, often compared with political correctness, began as a worthy reformist spiritual and doctrinal position within Christianity, before it became increasingly intolerant, satirized, and even regarded as un-Christian. Of many ironic quotations, this by the American Finley Peter Dunne on Thanksgiving (from Mr Dooley’s Opinions, 1901) is one of the sharpest: “’Twas founded be [by] the Puritans to give thanks f’r being presarved fr’m the Indyans, and we keep it to give thanks we are presarved fr’m the Puritans.” Lessing traces the development of political correctness as being similar to that of Puritanism:

This began as a sensitive, honest and laudable attempt to remove the racial and sexual biases encoded in language, but it was at once taken over by the political hysterics, who made of it another dogma. … There could hardly be a conversation without it, and PC was used as often as the Victorians used “It isn’t done”, meaning socially improper, or to bolster the orthodoxies of “received opinion”, or even to criticise the eccentric. (Lessing, 2004, p. 76)

“Fascism” has followed the same semantic pattern, being transformed from its strict Italian political origins to its broader sense of dictatorship and conformity. Roger Scruton has a notable essay on the topic in Untimely Tracts (1987). Today both “Puritan” and “Fascist” are, of course, highly critical terms. Paul Johnson defined political correctness as “liberal fascism” (cited in Kramer and Kimball, 1995, p. xii).

How adequate are the definitions so far offered? They are accurate, but only up to a point. What is obviously noteworthy about all of them is their lack of reference to what is really the most obvious semantic fact about political correctness, namely the emergence of a whole new series of artificial substitutions, some of them already listed, terms such as abled, herstory, lookism, phallocentric, waitron, and wimmin. Many other established terms, such as challenged, Eurocentric, gay, homophobic, patriarchy, and person have been given new meanings in the furtherance of particular agendas. Typically, politically correct language avoids judgmental terms, preferring an artificial currency of polysyllabic abstract euphemistic substitutions. Thus drug addiction is avoided, the preferred opaque formula being substance dependence; visually impaired is preferred to blind, while sex worker is the politically correct term for prostitute. Although cripple and spastic have become taboo, some formulas, such as differently abled for disabled have proved too artificial to gain real currency.

What is characteristic about the language? A detailed semantic analysis of the word field is to be found in chapter 4, while individual topics and forms are discussed under the various relevant headings in Part III. But in essence the language is unfamiliar and abstract, using high register classical elements (phallocratic, heterosexism) to an unusual degree and comparatively few native Anglo-Saxon terms. Even these appear in odd combinations like fattist and lookism. In essence it is a code language, with most of the forms, both the new (herstory, to Bork) and even the apparently familiar (disadvantaged, challenged) requiring translation and explanation of their agenda.

In addition to the semantic problems, the grammatical structure is noteworthy for its oddness. William Safire rightly observed that the most frequently used linguistic form was the “adverbially premodified adjectival lexical unit” (New York Times, May 5, 1991). This slightly cumbersome but accurate description perhaps contains a tinge of irony. A great number of the formulas of political correctness (e.g., politically correct itself, physically challenged, visually impaired, and differently abled) follow the same grammatical structure. Most seem unnatural for various reasons: they are abstract, imprecise, and euphemistic. However, the structure itself is not unusual: thus “financially sound” is an established phrase describing a company or institution. But financially underprivileged is problematic because there is a semantic mismatch: underprivileged does not normally qualify a financial situation. There is also the literal implication that being rich is a privilege, which is not valid, being true only of those who inherit wealth. The phrase has come about simply as one of the many euphemisms for “poor.” Similarly, physically strong describes a person in ordinary terms, but differently abled is logically an absurdity and a tautology, since people obviously differ in ability. Here the problem is compounded by unfamiliarity: differently is not normally used as a premodifier, and abled is a comparative neologism, recorded only from 1981.

What do these formulas mean? The real problem with all of them, as with most euphemisms, is that we do not know how disabled or poor these unfortunate people are, let alone what they feel about being called “abled,” “challenged,” and so on. This kind of semantic innovation is not truly traditional or idiomatic, thereby provoking objections and satire. We shall be returning to the issues of euphemism and satire in due course.

The Semantic Problems of Political Correctness

In essence, the political correctness debate has been about naming, or rather renaming. Typically outsiders are named and labeled, whether they be foreigners, the colonized, minorities, homosexuals, cripples, or the mad, to use the older vocabulary. The primary intentions of the interventions of political correctness were laudable, as all agree, namely to change ingrained prejudicial attitudes and their semantic correlatives by the introduction of new, neutral, and unfamiliar lexical forms. In tandem there were moves to denounce and diminish the currency of established demeaning vocabulary. These worthy initiatives were obviously not expressed on a tabula rasa, since, as many studies have shown, in crucial respects language is not neutral, but a reflection of dominant ideologies, unhealthy prejudices, and limited notions of normality. Centuries of bias have become established, even entrenched, in prejudicial and stereotypical language evident in terms for women, as well as the groups mentioned above. The more insulting of these terms are demotic and low in register: bitch, queer, wog, loony, and spastic are just some examples. Over time these have gained established currencies in the ordinary language of the street, in some literature, and in dictionary entries.

The attempt to reformulate such expressions in more neutral language of a higher register appropriate to public discourse, admirable though the motives were, has not received wholesale endorsement. After a period of initial acceptance, reactions ranged from measured criticism to outright hostility, ironic parody, and scornful rejection. There have simultaneously emerged various genres and figures in popular culture, notably rappers and “shock jocks,” who in various ways express views and use language which is blatant in its political incorrectness. In addition there have appeared semiserious and quite substantial anthologies of common and uncommon insults, such as Jonathon Green’s Big Book of Being Rude (2000), which focuses on personal insults, and Julian L’Estrange’s Big Book of Insults (2002) which contains a wealth of xenophobic (and anti-British) material. Whether these contrary tendencies are phases in a cultural model of thesis and antithesis remains to be seen. But the reaction of those whom Stanley Fish calls “the backlashers” (1994, p. 11) is disturbing, and can be explained by the model discussed below under the subsection “Semantic frameworks.”

The principal topics involved in renaming are dealt with in Part III. Here we are concerned with the formula political correctness itself, rather than the historical dimension of earlier regimes requiring conformity and orthodoxy. The formulation is fairly modern. As with many formulas, political correctness originally had quite a clear literal sense in a limited context, referring to the orthodox Communist party political line. Since then it has broadened in its applications and has also acquired meanings that are different from those of its individual component terms. These developments are not surprising in themselves. Let us compare two other set phrases of a social character, namely free enterprise and industrial action. We note that although enterprise and free have a wider range of meanings, free enterprise generally means what it says, within its capitalist framework. By contrast industrial action, in the UK, means something quite different from the general meanings of industrial and action: it is a euphemism or code term for strike.

We have seen earlier in the discussion that even serviceable definitions, such as that in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words (1997) turn out to be problematic or inadequate. In essence this is because the formula political correctness is an inherently problematic semantic construct. In the first place, there is no such thing as a “correct political attitude,” for various reasons. Politics is by any definition a diversified term covering a wide spectrum of activities going far beyond affairs of state and government to include local politics, office politics, family politics, marital politics, sexual politics, identity politics, and so on. We are virtually in the realm of the Marxist interpretation which sees politics in everything. Furthermore, outside the confines of totalitarian societies, no one political system or party can claim to be “correct.” Even within major political parties, there are “moderates,” “hardliners,” and “extremists.” Correctness, by contrast, denotes conformity to certain agreed standards or practices. Consequently, political correctness does not have an agreed, clear literal meaning, in the way that grammatical correctness or political corruption do.

The origins and evolution of these three formulas essentially reflect the degree of their accepted meanings in the speech community. Free enterprise has been in the language for over two centuries, but it took about a century for the modern capitalist sense to emerge. Since its meaning has developed naturally and gradually by consensus in the public domain, it is largely undisputed, even though there may be arguments about the desirable degrees of freedom within capitalism. Industrial action, on the other hand, is an artificial bureaucratic coinage dating from only around 1971, designed largely as a substitute formula to avoid the negative connotations of strike, the natural and common word. It is not only a euphemism; it is a misnomer, meaning essentially, industrial inaction. Consequently, although it has an official currency, it is generally regarded as an example of cynical double-speak and is thus seldom used in ordinary discourse. One cannot imagine a man saying to his mate in the pub: “We can’t go to the cricket because of the industrial action on the trains.” It is also essentially British in currency: foreigners and visitors would need a translation.

The history of political correctness is more complex, first emerging in Communist terminology as a policy concept denoting the orthodox party line of Chinese Communism as enunciated by Mao Tse-Tung in the 1930s. This we may call the hard political or literal sense. It was then borrowed by the American New Left in the 1960s, but with a more rhetorical than strictly programmatic sense, before becoming adopted and current in Britain. It is essentially a modern coinage by a minority, deriving from politically correct, dating from about 1970. The semantic history is treated in detail in chapter 2 in the section “Origins of the Phrase.”

Euphemisms: traditional, institutional and contrived

Euphemism is clearly the closest semantic relation, since all the classic formulations of political correctness show avoidance of direct reference to some embarrassing topic or condition. These go far beyond the traditional topics and modes of euphemism including, for example, disadvantaged, substance abuse, demographics, differently abled, and vertically challenged. Euphemism and other forms of verbal sanitization have a long history and typically take two semantic forms: the metaphorical use of root terms (pass water instead of piss and break wind instead of fart), or the substitution of so-called “Anglo-Saxon” words by polysyllabic abstract formulations using classical vocabulary, well described by Edward Gibbon as “the decent obscurity of a learned language” (Decline and Fall, chap. 30). Examples range from terminated pregnancy instead of abortion, erectile dysfunction for impotence, through to liquidate, neutralize, or terminate with extreme prejudice instead of kill. While the first examples are natural and have a long history in the speech community, the latter are more institutional, recent, unfamiliar, and “Orwellian” in the sense of disguising the violence and ugliness of war by means of bland abstraction. Some, like pacification for “subject to new tyranny” (an actual Orwellian coinage) show the added refinement of meaning virtually the opposite of their apparent sense, a feature we have noted in industrial action.

Significantly, Michel Bréal, the founding figure of semantics, noted in his seminal work over a century ago that words often “come to possess a disagreeable sense as a result of euphemism” (1900, p. 100). This is, of course, an ironic outcome, since the intention of euphemism is precisely to avoid “the disagreeable sense.” The point is that euphemisms seldom remain euphemisms over time, but become tainted by association with what they seek to disguise. Otto Jespersen, another great historian of the language, observed in 1905: “This is the usual destiny of euphemisms; in order to avoid the real name of what is thought indecent or improper, people use some innocent word. But when that becomes habitual in this sense it becomes just as objectionable as the word it has ousted and now is rejected in its turn” (1962, p. 230). Bréal also presciently perceived the results of “false delicacy” in sensitive areas:

We remember what a noble signification amant and maîtresse still possessed in Corneille [1606–84]. But they are dethroned, as was Buhle in German. Here we see the inevitable results of false delicacy; honourable names are dishonoured by being given to things which are dishonourable. (Bréal, 1900, p. 101)

This perception was taken further by the semanticist Stephen Ullmann, who argued that “the notorious deterioration which has affected various words for ‘girl’ or ‘woman’ … was no doubt due to genuine or pseudo-euphemism” (1964, pp. 90–1). Ullmann’s valuable term pseudo-euphemism is a more technical version of Bréal’s “false delicacy.” They can be seen in copious examples, such as lady of the night or fille de joie for “prostitute,” the more poetic antecedents of the politically correct industrial term sex-worker. Indeed, both “false delicacy” and “pseudo-euphemism” are very apt descriptions of much of the terminology of political correctness.

Euphemism is a genuine collective attempt to avoid an embarrassing topic that often becomes undermined by association, whereas pseudo-euphemism typically betrays certain elements of humorous connivance and irony. Thus to say “Snooks is a bit slow on the uptake” is a euphemism, whereas to say “Snooks is two cards short of a full house” is a pseudo-euphemism. Pseudo-euphemism draws attention to itself by being maliciously clever: thus “slow on the uptake” is an established phrase, a variation of “slow-witted,” whereas “two cards short of a full house” is a creative variation of a fertile new idiom discussed further under “Disability” in chapter 6.

Both modes are well established. Thus the ironic phrase “lick [i.e., touch] of the tar brush” is included by Francis Grose in his inimitable slang dictionary, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), explaining another euphemism, blue skin: “A person begotten on a black woman by a white man.” Also in Grose are love begotten child: a bastard, mother: a prostitute, mother of all saints: the monosyllable (a code word for cunt), unfortunate women: prostitutes, and a lady of easy virtue. Sapphic was an early pseudo-euphemism for lesbian; it has now become institutionalized. However, all euphemisms, precisely because they are not literal, are code terms or phrases depending on tacit or mutual understandings. An outsider will not grasp all the nuances: hence there is always a possibility of confusion. This increases when euphemisms are contrived artificially and given a new, limited currency by a particular pressure group, as has happened with political correctness.

The focus of euphemisms has, of course, changed from universals such as death, disease, sex, bodily functions, madness, the names of God and the Devil, to being crippled, being poor, being fired, being fat, or having a humble occupation. As this list shows, euphemisms cannot be entirely avoided, since bodily functions and having a humble occupation are euphemisms in themselves. Some readers will feel that crippled should be replaced by disabled. Race is a burgeoning new area of euphemism: political commentators and journalists increasingly prefer general terms like demographic change, immigrant, minority, origin, or background to specific markers like black or Asian. It is significant that a fairly comprehensive Dictionary of Euphemisms (1983) by Neaman and Silver covered all the traditional topics, including “Bureaucratese” and “The Game of War,” but not race. Today some journalistic codes and house rules forbid the mention of race in news stories about crime or violence. The number of euphemisms which grows up round a particular topic is an obvious indication of its power to embarrass: thus there are no euphemisms for “color,” only for “people of color.” The issue of race is taken up in more detail in Part III.

Long ago H. L. Mencken, the frank but controversial authority on what he called The American Language (1919–36), observed the American habit of dignifying menial occupations by means of grand titles: “The American seldom believes that the trade he follows is quite worthy of his virtues and talents … and even invents a sonorous name to set himself off from the herd” (1963, p. 339). His numerous examples included exterminating engineer and rodent operative for rat-catcher. Although Mencken called these “Occupational Euphemisms,” and like most observers treated these restylings with his typical ironic humor, they are not typical euphemisms in the manner of excrement, intimacy, and molest, since in many cases the object or calling is not unpleasant or embarrassing as such. They can be seen in another light, as attempts by those in the lower echelons of trade to be regarded with egalitarian dignity. Equality and dignity are, of course, two key watchwords of political correctness, and it is thus not surprising that this semantic tendency has become so highly developed in the United States.