
THIS RANT 03/02/98
Rant Of The Day is where I get to mouth off about whatever I feel like for however long I like. Theoretically, I'll update my whinge/opinion piece every weekday; in practice, maybe not so often. |
A brief Gusworld guide to political correctness
Amongst the many emails in my inbox on Gusworld related topics in the past week, the following has stuck in my mind:
Is there any chance of Gusworld doing a guide to being politically correct? I'm not very good at it and would appreciate some advice on the matter.
While Gusworld's ultimate arbiter of how to behave is, of course, Spanky The Naughty Little Monkey, we can never resist a cry for help from a needy online soul. So here are some basic tips to help you through the mire of politically correct behaviour:
- When in doubt, don't say anything; if you have an urgent need to communicate, use semaphore.
- It is not acceptable to refer to women as "tarts", "slags", "molls" or "that lot over there with the big jugs".
- The rule above may be relaxed when talking about Pauline Hanson, Pamela Anderson-Lee or anyone who has ever entered a beauty pageant.
- Ascribing a generic behaviour to a group of people on the basis of race or ethnic origin is a definite no-no. Apparently, no-one has told Ray Martin or the editors of The Daily Telegraph this.
- A good way to sound politically correct is to add the word "challenged":
- short = height-challenged
- overweight = calorfically-challenged
- thick as a brick = Amanda Vanstone
- John Howard has decided that the word "chairperson" should be replaced with "chairman". As such, you should feel entitled to spit in his direction if he is in your vicinity.
We would welcome additional contributions from readers to enhance this guide.
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