The University of New Hampshire has officially gone off the rails with their latest “Bias-Free Language Guide”–which declares words like “Americans” and “Caucasian people” as “problematic.”
Because apparently it might offend someone, somewhere.
The list of politically incorrect no-no words “is not meant to represent absolute requirements of language use,” according to the university–it’s unconstitutional for a public university to ban speech because of the First Amendment.
Highlights below:
- Preferred: people of advanced age, old people*
Problematic/Outdated: older people, elders, seniors, senior citizen*Old people has been reclaimed by some older activists who believe the standard wording of old people lacks the stigma of the term “advanced age”. Old people also halts the euphemizing of age. Euphemizing automatically positions age as a negative.
- Preferred: person living at or below the poverty line, people experiencing poverty
Problematic/Outdated: poor person, poverty-stricken person
- Preferred: person of material wealth
Problematic: rich
Being rich gets conflated with a sort of omnipotence; hence, immunity from customs and the law. People without material wealth could be wealthy or rich of spirit, kindness, etc.
- Preferred: people of size
Problematic/Outdated: obese*, overweight people
- Preferred: person who is blind/visually impaired
Problematic: blind person, “dumb”
- Preferred: U.S. citizen or Resident of the U.S.
Problematic: American
- Preferred: White people, European-American individuals
Problematic: Caucasian people
- Preferred: Folks, People, You All, Y’all
Problematic/Outdated: Guys (when referring to people overall)
- Preferred: Children who are gender non-conforming, Children who are gender variant
Problematic/Outdated: Girlie or Tomboy
Another ridiculous attempt on the Left to criminalize and demonize completely innocuous words that millions of people use, just because one person might be somewhat offended.
On the plus side, if you happen to be “rich of spirit,” the University of New Hampshire will probably love you.
