Interesting Quote

The intention is definitely part of the equation.
That is what is missing when things go too far.

Yes, but look at the fuss which resulted from whatshisname saying 'coloured person' instead of 'person of colour' even though it was obvious he was not being racist

Agreed

Dont agree with your second paragraph though petallus.

It's a fine line between free speech and casual insult. Perhaps the intention is also part of the equation. (Mixed metaphor or what?)

Yes, but look at the fuss which resulted from whatshisname saying 'coloured person' instead of 'person of colour' even though it was obvious he was not being racist.

Not so long ago, on a thread about Charlie Hebdo, everyone agreed that free speech was an important principle to fight for, the right to offend and be offended.

I think those of us of who never even contemplated using terms such as spastic for someone who says or does something silly, shirt-lifter for a gay man, or rag-head to describe anyone Middle Eastern, for example, might consider so-called political correctness an interference. To object to their use is neither censorship nor one-upmanship; it is a recognition of the power of words – in such cases the power to wound and hurt.

It is a form of one upmanship.

It stifles debate. It's a kind of censorship.

PDJ thinks pc can be a form of linguistic fascism.

I think it can be a form of social control and bullying of those who want to challenge the status quo.

Having briefly looked at the interview with P D James that jingle posted and, in particular, the paragraph starting "I went to Somerville", I really don't understand what political correctness has got to do with the advertising of date rape help lines in university toilets.

What exactly do those that object to "political correctness" think the term means and why do they object to it?

Sorry, Ana, I'd have to disagree with myself then. It'd do my head in.

You could just say them to yourself in the bathroom mirror. There doesn't have to be anyone to actually hear you.

Of course, it also depends on whether you have anyone to say these politically incorrect things to, before breakfast. The only ones I see at that time in the morning are two of my grandchildren and I'd much rather not say politically incorrect things to them before they go to school.

I have. She wasn't talking about golliwogs, was she, jingl?
Maybe people think that, if you criticise others for saying certain things, they will actually realise that they should change their way of thinking, soontobe, rather than stop people thinking what they do. I much prefer to ask people why they think the way they do instead of telling them to stop.
It took a war and millions of lives to stop Hitler and Mussolini, not just a few words.

Actually, I prefer George Eliot to Jane Austen, and Elizabeth Gaskell to either of them. Haven't read any PD James.

this is the interview during which she first said it about two thirds of the way down. The paragraph that starts, "I went to Somerville..."

jen you could read the whole thing.

I think that it is dawning on some of them that they have gone too far. They appear to have thought that if they could stop people saying certain things, that they would end up stopping people thinking them too!

Linguistic fascism.

https://gratiaetnatura.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/linguistic-fascists/

They didn't go to war against linguistic fascism, or political correctness. They went to war to protect freedom, and it took some a long time to realise that freedom was being attacked.

Totally agree jingl

My auntie asking a shop assistant for a n- brown skirt was in no way making a racist comment, in all her eighty odd years that was what she had always called a shade of brown.

Is that what P.D. James means though, or am I misunderstanding it?

Not in my first comment, Ana. I said anything about anything.

Racist language is the only subject that has been mentioned so far on this thread.

Did I say that anyone had said that it was?

Did anyone say it was?

solely

PC-ness isn't soley about racist issues!

By the way, jingl, Clarkson has said it's time he went, so you do not need to stick up for him any more.