AS 2002 begins and the world enters the second year of the third millennium, America should break new ground by declaring its official language "American." Though Ebonics and Valley speak have existed in America for years, it was the politically correct 1990s that redefined the language and created a definitive difference between English and "American." Combined with a basic inability to understand the delineation between parts of speech, American speech has perverted and distorted the English language to such a degree that Americans speak a nearly indecipherable dialect of English.
Many conservatives attribute the deterioration of the language to slang, but the reality is that the study of linguistics finds that most commonly accepted words were in similar positions at some time in history. Perhaps "face time," "IM" and "dot.com" seem like menial and stupid new entries into dictionaries, but time eventually will determine their fate in linguistics. Making verbs into nouns and showing complete disregard for the mechanics of word form is a far more embarrassing development in American speech.
But for all the ludicrous words created or perverted, nothing compares to the removal or reassignment of terms for no reason other than the fear of being considered insensitive. The most appalling example of the politically correct fever came last month when the Boston City Council voted 12-0 to ban the use of "minority" to refer to ethnic groups in official city documents and proceedings. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has fought the decision and has come under criticism for his dissent. What is shocking is that the term allegedly has come to have a pejorative connotation. A minority is simply a group that numbers less than half of a measured population. Maybe the vote was unanimous because some members of the council feared being ostracized as a member of the dreaded minority. The way things are heading, the world will run out of nouns before an acceptably non-offensive term is found.
Reading a single newspaper, watching television, or merely having a conversation with another person illuminates the influence of political correctness on America. Public speech must be devoid of the appearance of improper or bigoted terminology to prevent hurting the feelings of the target audience. Though censorship of certain terms started with racist terms that carried a specific pejorative connotation, it has progressed to a critical mass in which direct references are eliminated in favor of more noble and respectable compounds. The original intentions of this alteration in terminology were admirable, but abuses in the language do nothing but invalidate the whole system as seen in the flap in Boston.
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Political correctness, a euphemism itself, is a pervasive and virulent disease that is quickly spreading in the media, government and now American schools. Children in middle and high school no longer take Home Economics, but rather Family and Consumer Science. As if Home Economics wasn't a soft enough term for cooking and sewing, now the schools have designated this new branch of science. It's only a matter of time before school recess is renamed Intellectual Cultivation and Energy Restoration Time or some other insane euphemism.
The most laughable aspect of this whole situation is that America does not even have an official language. Though virtually everyone in America speaks the same language and most signs are posted in English, America never formally has recognized English as its official language. Political correctness is such a rampant disease in this country that the government would rather not acknowledge the only language spoken in most public American facilities than step on a few feet. While they're changing the terms and trying to avoid hurting feelings, an out-of-state transfer student such as myself would prefer the term, "Geographically Displaced Escapee From An Unwanted Place."
Social commentators suggest that American culture is dead and that the nation is becoming one large faceless society. Clearly, the American society is livelier than ever as a whole new language has arisen. Of course, some group would step forward and claim that the term "American" somehow ignores the contributions of their group. To avoid the appearance of ignoring a cross-section of society, the new language should just be called, "Stuff We Say Here." Though it would be blovatious (another new word; "to bloviate" is to write verbosely), at least it wouldn't offend anyone.
(Brad Cohen's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bcohen@cavalierdaily.com.)
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