Political correctness will kill language

Things look black, or shall we say grim, for those who are not mindful of what they say, at least in Britain. Already hamstrung by strict smoking and drinking laws, the average Briton will be further straitjacketed by the pundits of political correctness (PC) in the all-pervasive NGO or quango sector, who have mandated, err....decreed, that henceforth many everyday terms of speech will be deemed inappropriate, on the grounds of colour and gender discrimination.

No longer will the common man, err, person, be allowed to say ���mankind��� for instance; humankind is a, well, kinder and more inclusive way to describe our species. How they will deal with the Latin denomination of humankind ��� homo sapiens or wise man ��� is less certain.

Some words and phrases to be blacked out, err, proscribed are ���right hand man��� (to be substituted by ���second in command��� ) and ���black sheep of the family���. If the movement gains currency, it may not be long before all phrases including the words black and white (may even others) will be out of bounds, besides those using ���man��� as a suffix or prefix.

Even quaint, old world phrases like ���gentleman���s agreement��� fall foul of this new correctness, not to mention once-kosher terminologies such as ���ethnic minority���. The use of words in the latter phrase is now thought to ���diminish��� the importance of that group. The implications of the spread of PC flu for India are manifest, err, evident.

The Congress , for instance, would have to rethink its aam aadmi catchphrase and Gandhiji could no longer be revered as the ���father��� of the nation and would be put into the gender-neutral grouping of the ���founders��� of the country. Unless restrained by common sense, the bells will toll for any words that, in effect, differentiate one thing from another.

By restricting expression, the world would be heading inexorably towards making George Orwell���s fictional language in 1984, Newspeak ��� ���the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year ��� as he put it ��� a reality.