Illustration by Sarah James / The Phoenix News
Do you ever use the words businessman, mankind, or waitress? Well, according to Princeton University’s Office of Human Resources, those words are a big no-no and not gender inclusive. If you do not want to acquire the dreadful title of being gender-binary, like humans have for thousands of years, and embrace the Orwellian destruction of language, listen up.
In the 4-page pamphlet to Princeton staff titled “Guidelines for Using Gender Inclusive Language,” they list multiple grammatical changes to prevent any delicate flowers from being offended by pronouns. This would be funny if they were not being serious.
Here is an example from the pamphlet: “each employee is expected to turn in his annual disclosure form by the deadline.” Okay, that looks fine, but uh oh, the “revised” sentence is, “employees are expected to turn in the annual disclosure forms by the deadline.” I did not notice any changes upon a first reading because they did not provided italics in this example.
In a worse example, they provide the sentence, “the tenant must keep her apartment clean and tidy,” which looks great. But no, the corrected sentence is, “you must keep your apartment clean and tidy.” They seriously suggest changing the voice to address the reader as “you” and “your” just to remove the word “she” to appease sensitive snowflakes. Soon the words “mother” and “father” will be removed because they are too gender- binary. Brave New World here we come!
The most hilariously horrifying examples are the ones that suggest changing terms and expressions because they have the words “man” in them. One sentence says, “please get a clerk to man the front desk,” where it should apparently be, “please get a clerk to staff the front desk.” That’s right, the pamphlet says, in he/she’s own words, to replace “generic words and expressions that contain the word man and the use of man as an adjective or verb.” And it is not just the word “man,” using the word “wife” or “policewoman” or “chairwoman” is also under the “don’t use” column of words that have no negative connotation and need to be replaced.
Cannot use businessman or businesswoman, now it is businessperson. Forefathers? Nope, we must use .. Manpower? No, now it’s staff, workers, and workforce. Even something as thoughtless as “manmade” is replaced by handmade and artificial. They even suggest “people hours” instead of “man hours.” I guess we need to remove “no-man’s- land” from history books (oops, sorry, the “they story” books). I am surprised they allowed “humanity” to replace “mankind” because it really should be “hupersonity.”
Did anyone ever watch the mid-90s cartoon Duckman? In the episode “Forbidden Fruit,” Duckman finds three different news stories as he flips through the TV channels. One is about a proposed ban on boysenberries until a genetically equal “girlsenberries” develops, the language of Hebrew is changed to “Webrew,” and a sewer worker is charged for sexual misconduct for referring to his “manhole.” There are also running jokes that the word “women” is spelt “womyn,” and that “mailman” is replaced with “person-person.” They’re hilarious jokes in the show, but with this crap coming from Princeton, UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Tennessee, and Marquette University, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone suggested those with a straight face.
I will admit though, some of the changes make sense on a grammatical level without any consideration to political correctness, and by some I mean one. The sentence, “all participants must present their ID badges at the door,” makes more sense than, “each participant must present his ID badge at the door,” That is, unless we are talking about a boys-only school (oh geez, can I still say boys?) So yes, some examples can look better in writing, but if it is in speech, who is going to notice if someone says “he” or “she” instead of “they” or “we”? I am sure there are some self- identified language policemen (oh, pardon my bigotry, “police officers”) that go about their lives correcting pronouns and listening for things that actually don’t matter just to deem them offensive. We’re talking grammar Nazis with extra Nazi.
We should not change our everyday language to protect the feelings of the oversensitive. If someone suggests that F-bombs and sacrilegious phrases be removed because they find it offensive, would many take him seriously in today’s world? (And yes, I just used the word “him.” Did you even notice or are you now having convulsions?) If people want to alter their written and spoken language, they have every right in a free country to do so, but implementing it on a group is being overprotective; they’re just words. As I have said before, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Words can offend people, but only if they let them. Let’s stop taking offense to the smallest things and act like adults, or at least what adults used to be.