Political Correctness in Russia

[colkitto@rogers.com]

One excellent example of the absurdity of PC, which non-American readers
might be interested in, or people involved in teaching American culture to
non-Americans might care to put together some material on, is provided by
the words "niggard", "niggardly", and the Montypythonesque scenes that
occur when it comes up in, e.g., Washington City Council deliberations, or
teaching Middle English literature, or English-Scandinavian lexical
relations. 

(I deliberately did not cite that example in my earlier postings, as I
thought it would be too well-known)

As a comparison from Russian, one of the rhymes in A. Tolstoy's "po greble
..." might be cited.

(Lise Brody wrote)
 
> Those of us over forty do remember an effort to use language that was
based
on respect and self-identification.  Why this effort should be the target of
such relentless and nasty ridicule is a question worth asking.  What is so
threatening about respect?

Because half the time it's not about respect at all.  Russian readers might
care to check out liberal press commentary on, e.g., Condoleezza Rice,
Michael Steele, or Clarence Thomas, or how a Democrat Senator, formerly an
enthusiastic supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, can get away with using a
certain word in the twentieth century. 

I haven't even broken the surface here. A whole course could be put
together for non-Americans on American political correctness, the attendant
grotesque hypocrisy suggested above, and the occasional lethal
consequences, but this is not really the forum for it.

Robert Orr

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