h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Political Correctness in the Early American Republic, or, How to Be 'Woke' in 1830 - A87989431
Author: Dmitri Gheorgheni - Not Banned in China - U1590784

We got into a discussion of the vagaries of 'political correctness' last night, so this morning, I had to do a bit of rummaging through the 1830s anthropological accounts of the habits of those wild Americans...

This entry has two objects: to inform, and to make you laugh like hyenas.

For me it absolutely succeeded in both! I had a very good time reading this.

Thanks, Tav!

Great Entry - very informative indeed.

More Victorian than the Victorians in relation to the furniture legs...

Educational about 'rooster', too. 'Poultry political correctness' is a challenge indeed - reminds me of the in my student boarding house when the kitchen staff were delighting in asking everyone to say whether they were breast or leg people before they could get their chicken dinner - I was so at the innuendo that the term 'white meat' eluded me

Plenty of strange terms are used in relation to disabled people, but I like how you explain the phenomenon in this Entry - people who are trying not to offend a strange 'new' species come up with the most convoluted euphemisms, but it settles down once the strange species becomes more familiar and joins the conversation.

An 'amusing' situation was when the charity for people with cerebral palsy renamed itself from The Spastics Society to Scope because 'spastic' had become a playground insult more than a medical term - it wasn't too long before 'scoper' became the insult instead...

The Entry perhaps ends on a sad note, although it is a positive that the school was aiming to change the attitudes 'to substitute real delicacy'.

'...it settles down once the strange species becomes more familiar and joins the conversation.' Beautifully put! And that's it, in a nutshell.

See? I was right about that chicken business. It's funny how much of this becomes a legacy issue later. At least I've never heard anyone refer to a bull as a 'gentleman cow'.

You're right about the terms for disabilities, too.

Silliness happens, because people are people. But the progress is real, even when it's slow. (We're allowed to laugh at ourselves along the way.)

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