This and That: P.C.
Elsie Eva is irritated by the folly of political correctness.
A few nights ago my house alarm keypad gave me a message; not a nasty loud one, but a gentle glowing light, when all else was dark. The message it displayed was "P.C." - power cut.
Well, I had guessed as much already, since all had been plunged into darkness, but it was reassuring to know that I was not alone and my burglar alarm was watching over me.
It's strange, isn't it, our use of those initials? There was a time when P.C. meant only one thing - Police Constable. (Remember P.C.49 on the radio - was it Brian Reece?) Then, along came all our wonderful, modern-day technology and we had P.C. = Personal Computer. All right, I can accept all these definitions and usages and can find nothing irritating about them.
However, we now have the stupidity of Political Correctness.
A little thought before opening our mouths to speak is all well and good, but the pendulum has swung too far and now it's all got out of hand. All manner of words and expressions can be (and are) misconstrued.
Nowadays, people have to be constantly vigilant - they never know when Big Brother may be watching and listening. Many times we say things with no disrespect intended. But what happens? Words and expressions are seized upon and labelled discriminatory and therefore politically incorrect.
In a crazy attempt to change history and also people's attitudes, the words in books are changed: in school, many books were jettisoned because the characters were deemed to be stereotypical.
We all know that women can be bus drivers or lorry drivers, if they so wish, and that men can become nurses, or stay at home to look after the children, but we can't embrace every possibility. Children can see examples of role reversal in everyday life, so there should be no need to throw away books that have characters fitting the more generally accepted roles. What is so terribly wrong about reading of such people?
As a child, it did not bother me one iota that my reading books told of children living on a higher social plane than I was. I knew that I would never become a princess, but that did not detract from my enjoyment. Happily, in my childhood, we did not have this wholesale clearing out of books that were deemed unsuitable, since they were too middle-class.
It's all getting silly, isn't it? We now have chalkboards, not blackboards, perish the thought! It's quite some time now since a notice was displayed exhorting teachers to request 'coffee with no milk', since it would be offensive to ask for - horror of horrors - black coffee. All this idiotic political correctness does is make us all aware of difference, and eventually many of us become resentful.
Years ago, we delighted in the sound of singers such as Nat King Cole and Fats Waller. And who can forget Nellie Lutcher's rendition of "He's Got a Fine Brown Frame"? Great stuff - and nothing to offend anyone.
However, more recently, we have had "Young, Gifted & Black" and "Brown Skin". With all this P.C. nonsense going on, these songs get under our skin (no pun intended) and irritate us.
I'm just waiting for someone to come up with a protest against the name "Black Dyke Mills Band". Don't laugh - it could happen!
