Banning Words: State Dept and NYC Dept Of Education Want To Ban Words and Phrases That Are "Racist"

Every once in a while someone gets a p.c. bug up their proverbial posterior and decides certain words or phrases need to be banned for some asinine reason or other. The New York City Department of Education thinks it would be a great idea to do away with certain words used in standardized tests like, dinosaur, birthday and dancing; in fact there are 50 or so similar and totally innocuous words they want to ban because they might somehow make a kid or two feel bad.

The word “dinosaur” made the hit list because dinosaurs suggest evolution which creationists might not like, WCBS 880′s Marla Diamond reported. “Halloween” is targeted because it suggests paganism; a “birthday” might not be happy to all because it isn’t celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

You won't believe some of the others they would like removed.

And then you have Scotland Yard that banned the word "blacklist" because it's racist.

Now the U.S. State Department is calling for a ban on certain words and phrases it deems racist, like "holding down the fort", because according to the Department's Chief Diversity Officer, John M. Robinson, "holding down the fort" is actually:

.. the linguistic equivalent of scalping a Cherokee? According to Robinson, the phrase dates back to American soldiers on the western frontier who wanted to “hold down” all that land they stole.

Well, who knew.

And here's more words and phrases Robinson would like to see eliminated:

“Handicap” and “rule of thumb” are two more figures of speech that Robinson, in his wisdom, has decreed offensive. The latter, Robinson says, refers to the width of a stick a man could once use to legally beat his wife.

But, get this, according to the Daily Caller Robinson hasn't a clue if any of the "etymologies" are based on truth.

“Much has been written about whether the etymologies below are true or merely folklore, but this isn’t about their historical validity,” Robinson writes. “[I]nstead, it is an opportunity to remember that our choice of wording affects our professional environment.”

Okay.

Some other phrases that he feels should be verboten:

 “going Dutch” is a reference to Netherlanders’ apparently well-known parsimoniousness, and that your widowed neighbor, sweet old Mrs. Rasmussen, cries every time she hears you use it?

Pretty soon there will be no words or phrases left in the English language that are non-offensible. Maybe we should all just grunt, but then someone would come along and ban grunting because it's offensive to pigs.

This p.c. b.s. really needs to stop.