![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/anna-pelzer-IGfIGP5ONV0-unsplash-scaled.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI had intended to write a column on how some of the language we use these days can be difficult for older folks like me to assimilate. I recall how, in the 1970s, we all could have a chuckle over \u201cpolitical correctness,\u201dwhether we were coming from the left, right or somewhere in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when I asked on Facebook<\/a> for examples of \u201cmodern-day euphemisms\u201d that readers felt had perhaps gone too far, I opened a spigot of social media venom that has yet to be closed. To which I feel obligated to say: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGuys, you\u2019re taking this all too seriously! I just wanted to have a spot of fun.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The trigger for my latest lexical exploration came when I was listening to a podcast during which, in the course of an episode discussing various aspects of parenting, the host never once used the word \u201cmother.\u201d Instead, it was \u201cbirthing person.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n I understand the reasoning: In an age when a trans man may still have the physical equipment to give birth, \u201cmother\u201d may not be an inclusive enough term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems, however, that my age may finally be catching up with me. I\u2019m finding it difficult to close the generation gap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not alone in my perturbation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat about women who cannot give birth, or who have adopted, fostered or used a surrogate? \u2018Birthing person\u2019 excludes them,\u201d wrote several similarly \u201cmature\u201d commentators to my Facebook query.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s best not to label someone at all. Refer to them by function,\u201d another person helpfully offered. So, rather than use \u201cmale\u201d or \u201cman,\u201d instead say, \u201ca person who could get testicular cancer<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Isn\u2019t this all really a form of kindness, asked Josh, \u201cseeing people as they are and not using labels that render them invisible?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps I protest too much?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then I read about several developments that had me stretching my euphemistically befuddled brain. Such as the latest pronouncement from WPATH<\/a>, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, that there\u2019s a new gender identity that must be supported \u2013 the eunuch<\/a> \u2013 complete with freely chosen castration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Or as Andrew Sullivan, host of the popular Dishcast radio program, points out, look at the latest statement from the Human Rights Campaign<\/a> that one should feel free to identify however one wishes, even if that\u2019s as a \u201ctree<\/a>\u201d or a \u201cfish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether you\u2019re sniggering sympathetically or stifling simmering outrage, politically correct euphemisms have always been designed to obfuscate the uncomfortable realities lurking underneath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s how \u201cdouble mastectomy\u201d becomes \u201ctop surgery\u201d or a \u201cchest-masculinization\u201d procedure. It’s how what was once called a \u201csex change\u201d is now a \u201cgender-confirming\u201d operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern age euphemisms are not exclusive to gender issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWar\u201d gets repositioned as a \u201ccampaign or an \u201cintervention.\u201d (Russia is particularly guilty of weaponizing this euphemism, although Israel doesn\u2019t escape notice, either.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHealthy\u201d could be construed a microaggression for someone who\u2019s not. So, let\u2019s replace it, some suggest, with \u201ctemporarily abled.\u201d (Being \u201ctemporarily cancer free\u201d isn\u2019t particularly reassuring.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCultural appropriation\u201d may be the grandfather of 21st century newspeak. What was once a laudable goal \u2013 the melting pot, where a heady mix of cultures leads to all kinds of delightful instances of \u201cfusion,\u201d from food to art \u2013 has been transformed into an approbation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2016 I wrote<\/a> about an Oberlin College student who criticized campus food services for preparing a Vietnamese banh mi<\/em> sandwich with ciabatta bread instead of a baguette and coleslaw instead of pickled vegetables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was also the\u00a0the cancelation<\/a> of a longstanding yoga class taught by a non-Indian\u00a0woman\u00a0at the University of Ottawa. The instructor, Jennifer Scharf, who had been offering the class for free for seven years, offered to rename it \u201cmindful stretching.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her proposal was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n U.S. college campuses have seen their share of anti-Israel protests over the years. But don\u2019t call it antisemitism. Anti-Zionism is now the \u201ckosher\u201d alternative for Jew haters who don\u2019t want to be called out on their bigotry and racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To wit: a number of student groups at UC Berkeley\u2019s School of Law passed a bylaw<\/a> banning \u201cZionist\u201d speakers from its events on campus. Beyond the quad, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib warned that support for Israel is antithetical<\/a> to being \u201cprogressive.\u201d To which Representative Ritchie Torres of New York tweeted, \u201cThere is nothing progressive about advocating the end of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Find \u201cpedophiles\u201d upsetting? Don\u2019t worry, that\u2019s been cleaned up \u2013 they\u2019re now \u201cminor attracted persons<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A program for older adults was once phased out due to \u201cnatural disenrollment.\u201d That is, the participants died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be fair, I\u2019ve not been immune to political correctness. I once posed for a picture in front of a poster that read \u201cPower to the Sandinistas\u201d during my own studies at Oberlin. I doubt I had any knowledge of what the Sandinistas were all about (they were the socialist rulers of Nicaragua who battled the U.S.-backed Contras in the early 1980s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, before you \u201cOK Boomer me\u201d for being hopelessly out of touch, can we accept that the pace and breadth of these changes in language are coming too fast for my and many of my peers\u2019 set-in-our-ways, middle aged brains to grok?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want to be upstanding, woke citizens of the world, but maybe we\u2019ll have to settle for something more achievable: To simply be a good person struggling to make sense of a rapidly radicalizing world, with mild chortles where appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s one change I think we can all get behind: Renaming \u201cmail man\u201d as \u201cperson person.\u201d (OK, seriously, that would be \u201cpostal carrier.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s at least worth a sly grin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I first wrote about woke euphemisms for The Jerusalem Post<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday Night Live took on “woke jeans” in this bit<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo by Anna Pelzer<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When did we lose the ability to laugh at the linguistic changes coming at us at an ever-increasing pace? A look at modern-day “woke” euphemisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,9,46,18],"tags":[500,549,544,550,548,546,542,547,543,545],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7862"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7872,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7862\/revisions\/7872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisnormallife.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}