Antedating of "Politically Incorrect"

[Fred Shapiro]

politically incorrect (OED 1947)

1933 _Christian Science Monitor_ 28 Nov. 8 (ProQuest Historical
Newspapers)  The results of a recent investigation of the knowledge of
65,000 Soviet pupils are candidly summed up in the official newspaper,
Izvestia, in the following terms: "Bad grammar, abundance of mistakes in
spelling, low level of knowledge of literature, insufficient acquaintance
with mathematics, poor knowledge of the map in geography, superficial and
often politically incorrect information in civics and social sciences. . .
. "

NOTE: The above is not only an antedating of the phrase _politically
incorrect_, but it also is much earlier than any other evidence that has
been found (as far as I know) for Communist usage of any term related to
_politically correct_.

Fred Shapiro


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Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
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