As I’m sure there were in most
high schools, cliques of the “smarter” students tried to create a special place
for themselves. They isolated their
classmates in favor of those equally special, smart kids.
These non-inclusive dolts were
the types with which you are familiar; the guys had beards, unibrows, and
always looked stoned. Come to think of
it, so did the girls with whom they associated.
But I digress.
To be even more exclusive, they
dyed their hair, wore unique clothing, and loved science fiction. To that end, they also created their own
language. Their effort was to prevent
the non-smart kids from eavesdropping on them to learn what inane lives they
had.
Of course, it made no sense
because there are so many different languages in the world. In fact, I’ll save you the trouble of looking
the number up and simply give it to you: over 6800.
With that staggering number of
ways to communicate with one another, it would be stupid, not smart, to invent
another language. Besides, many of those
non-inclusive kids were in my classes with me, and did poorly in English and
German.
I occasionally wonder whatever
happened to those smarter kids. I
speculate whether they got good jobs or married or in what prison they are
currently residing.
And then it hit me.
Personhole, is a word that was
new to me when I awoke this morning. No,
it didn’t appear in today’s crossword puzzle, it was something I heard on the
news.
Another ear-catcher was
personpower, as was persongo. Yep.
If you think I’m creating my own
smart language before your eyes, you couldn’t be more wrong. But I believe I may have discovered offspring
of some of those smart kids from my high school.
The news story to which I am
referring is from the left coast city of Berkeley ,
California Berkeley Berkeley
City
Officially changing common names
to make society “all-inclusive” is quite ambitious. Authoritatively banning use of the word “man”
in ordinary language is, well, just plain stupid.
Manhole has become personhole,
manpower is now personpower, and mango has suddenly been renamed persongo.
 |
| Photo of persongo fruit |
While you may think this is
humorous, it actually borders on lunacy.
This is the same way we became “politically correct” some years ago. We
were slowly indoctrinated into making nitwits supervisors, hiring illiterate
idiots to teach our children, and forcing lending institutions to give
mortgages to people unable to repay loans, all in the name of political
correctness.
Those efforts resulted in
everyone being called racists, homophobes, misogynists, and bigots. It divided our once strong, cohesive nation.
But today is special. Today we have the benefit of hindsight, allowing
us as a society to reject stupidity to make a handful of people “feel included”
Creating a new language was dumb
in the 1960’s, and it is dumber right now in time.
And just as when I was in high
school, I’m going to ignore your dim-witted efforts to exclude me and others
under the guise of inclusiveness.
Go annoy someone else.
