[Ads-l] Antedating of "Politically Correct" (Communist Usage)

[Laurence Horn]

Yup, what (he noted that) she said.

> On Jul 5, 2020, at 3:58 PM, Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Larry's memory is supported by Deborah Cameron's book _Verbal Hygiene_,
> which details the intervening phase of self-satirical use by those on the
> left (though this phase is often forgotten about). Relevant excerpts from
> Ch. 4:
> 
> "[S]ome writers have made attempts to pin down the origins and early uses
> of the terms 'politically correct' and 'politically incorrect' among
> American New Left activists in the 1960s and 1970s.  According to Ruth
> Perry, the source from which these groups adopted the phrase was probably
> the English translation of Mao's _Little Red Book_. Alternatively, Barbara
> Epstein has suggested a connection with 'correct lineism', a term used in
> the Communist Party...
> "The most common use of 'politically correct' [early on] was *ironic* -- to
> quote Maurice Isserman, 'it was always used in a tone mocking the pieties
> of our own insular political counterculture, as in "we could stop at
> McDonald's down the road if you're hungry-- but it wouldn't be *politically
> correct*"'...
> "['PC'] functioned on one hand to differentiate the New Left from the
> orthodox Marxism it had rejected, and on the other to satirize the group's
> own tendency towards humourlessness, self-righteousness and rigid orthodox
> 'party lines', poking fun at the notion that anyone could be (or would want
> to be) wholly 'correct'". (pp. 126-7)
> 
> --bgz
> 
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 3:53 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Without getting into the details or being able to provide relevant cites,
>> I was under the impression (based on my own memories) that there was an
>> intermediate state between the second phase ("non-satirical Communist
>> usage”) and the third ("satirical use by conservatives"):  the jocular use
>> by non-purist leftists to mock more hard-core leftists and/or to express a
>> self-deprecation.  I haven’t checked the OED cites to see if this
>> impression is supported there.
>> 
>>> On Jul 5, 2020, at 3:38 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The OED's earliest usage of the phrase "politically correct," discovered
>> by me, is dated 1793.  The OED's definition does not focus on the second
>> phase of "politically correct," the non-satirical Communist usage, against
>> which the third phase of "politically correct" (satirical use by
>> conservatives) was a reaction.  In their citations they do include a 1934
>> cite from a Communist context.  I would suggest that the OED definition
>> should add a sub-sense for Communist usage.  Here is the earliest I have
>> found for that sub-sense:
>>> 
>>> 1926 _Daily Worker_ 20 July 4/6 (ProQuest)  It was not an accident but a
>> fairly legitimate and politically correct step of the British Communist
>> Party to issue the slogan: "All power to the general council of the trade
>> unions."
>>> 
>> 
> 
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