I Loathe Political Correctness

The blueprint's awesome: 'Let's not be nasty to anyone with hurtful words'.

But in real life, I'd rather say that I'm not very tall instead of stating that I'm vertically-challenged (whoever came up with that expression deserves a good spanking).

When I talk about PC, I tend to say that it's pretending to call a kitten a mighty Dane whilst still thinking that it's not even worth a goldfish - and it's mostly ridiculous.

Now... It can be quite revealing (and that's when my theory that most people using PC fall into the category of those thinking 'I believe the kitten's not worth a goldfish' gets its legs).

Just this afternoon... One title from The Japan Times (I have nothing against them, they're mostly cool, and their reports about whaling and dolphins' slaughters are brave and accurate, but they follow the diktat of PC in journalism) made me growl.

Have a look at this:

Korean-American activist raps Suga’s response to failed lawsuit against ‘comfort woman’ statue [Incidentally, the article's there if you want to read it]

Why am I growling? Well... Korean-American? We're not talking about hybrids (as in 'My dad's a cat, but my mum's a tuna, so I hate water, but I have a fish tail so I have to live in sea water'). We're talking about American citizens who happen to have parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents who, incidentally, came from Korea, settled in the US, and became legal citizens.

This reminds me of the Japanese-American people who were sent to camps in 1942.

This is not a way to acknowledge a rich ancestry. Nope. That's telling people 'Whatever you do, you don't fully belong, and we'll keep reminding you because we don't want your lot here'.

African-American anyone?

You never hear or read British-American, European-American, Swiss-American. You're only yada-yada-American if you're from a minority that's historically recent or still hated by (mostly, but not only) the WASP - those delightful people who emigrated to the Colonies, just like any Korean-American, but who did it last week instead of yesterday (yes, I'm European, and I am making fun of the Colonists who think that a century is a long time).

And then, there's the 'comfort woman' issue. We have archives, we have testimonies, and we have victims and witnesses who are still alive.

Calling these victims 'comfort women' is belittling their ordeal and giving it a cute PC name. That's something that should be avoided (oh, and anyone denying what happened to them had better stop siding with their tormentors, read a few testimonies on the topic and accurate History books, and basically avoid telling me that they were volunteers; they were enslaved to entertain the boys).

There's no beating around the bush: these ladies were forced to become sex slaves. These are terrible words. Sad words, but denial should only be that long river in Africa.

Journalism is coded writing, but things can be more accurate, and a kitten is a kitten, so let's call it a kitten and treat it like a kitten; that would be respect and equality.

*off the soap box again*

Of Spades & Roses

Yes. Yes, of course, there's this:

                    What's in a name? that which we call a rose
                    By any other name would smell as sweet

Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 2) by William Shakespeare

And it is true that the name given to something (anything, really) shouldn't be that important, and that the thing itself is more important than the name that allows us to find it in a dictionary.

Paradoxically, I'm also quite fond of calling a spade a spade [Writer's Warning: I've just noticed an American controversy about the use of that saying; the first to suggest any hint of Americanism in this post, and on my blog in general, gets a free meeting with my rolling pin, and an invitation to the naughty step for a millennium].

I think it all boils down to (that artificial, pseudo) political correctness, which I simply cannot stand.

Do not get me wrong. I believe in equality. I dream about equality.

But PC is the way some people have found to hide their disrespect. Usually, I say that it's a way to call someone something pompous whilst still believing that that person is fully unworthy of everything. C'mon! The one who came up with "vertically-challenged" was smoking the lawn or deserves the spanking of the decade!

Basically (and I've been thinking about this all day), I think that I don't mind equal synonyms, but I may have a slight allergy to terms that can be ambiguous, which brings me to the heart of today's post: Jane Austen (you knew that my Regency addiction wasn't too far, didn't you?). 

[Note to fellow sewing bunnies: I'm working on the Regency toile; it's just that things have been a tad bumpy here these past few days. Update soon, I promise.]

The thing that's bothering me is the bout of sexism around her devotees' name. Of course, we can forgive Mr Saintsbury, who coined the word "Janeite" in 1894; he was a Victorian man, and there might have been a fondness in the creation of that word. The word seem to have been adopted by most Austen enthusiasts, and if you look for it in a search engine, it'll give you about 12700 results in the world.

Out of curiosity, I did the same with "Austenian": about 2640 results.

So, here's what's bothering me, in spite of the fact that I know we're dealing with a word that's been used for over a century and that's now a part of History for better or for worse (and that was most probably invented with a lot of admiration), we're still dealing with Miss Austen's works as if she were mostly "Dear Aunt Jane", the charming woman who helped her family first and who wrote astounding plots when she could steal a few moments of quiet here and there.

She was Jane; the daughter, sister, aunt, and kind neighbour. She was all that. And her life was as fascinating as everybody's life (all right. Almost everybody!) on this Earth.

But... her works are so good that she's still read, published, used for films and series regularly. There are fanfictions and acclaimed authors borrow her works to write sequels, prequels, and paid fanfictions (fine... I'll admit that I don't believe in updating her works - but I loved Lost in Austen; I can understand that a lot of people like those modernizations of her works).

And still, the devotees are Janeites.

Were Shakespeare's works written by "Bill"? Is Dickens called by his first name? No.

Dickensian is an adjective in the OED. Bill gets a noun and an adjective.

Dear old Jane does have her page, but that's all.

We've got a History of naming important things by using the surnames of the people linked to them. Perhaps it's time to have the devotees of Miss Austen mutate into Austenians (this could work as noun and adjective, or a daring Austenesque could be considered for the adjective - there are possibilities). She's quite important, and even though we can still love her, and, yes, coo, and rejoice when we reach the happy ending in our favourite novel, using her surname would be quite an interesting change.

Love and admiration would still work with more respect and seriousness.

Miss Austen would certainly appreciate Regency manners more than Victorian traditions.

From now on, when asked, I'll declare myself a fervent Austenian.

'Do your homework!', or the Birth of the Christian Zombies

That first part of the title, that would be me shouting at my screen when I catch some silliness on the Internet (I've got a handful of pet peeves - guilty).

There's a lot of silliness out there, but the one thing that's beginning to get higher and higher on my list of "grrr" things is a misused symbol.

Now... I know that languages change, that they're mutating sponges that could move in Bedlam and look at home. I know that if things weren't changing, we'd still be using Celtic, or Latin, or Greek... or a form of Indo-European - or something. I know. Believe me, I know.

And yet... I must admit it quite bugs me when I see more and more devout, militant, in-your-face Christians place a cross after their names in order to show the world that they are faithful zealots (I have yet to find one person doing this and showing actual Christian goodness and tolerance). 

It's not the first time I growl about that, but I find the phenomenon spreading a bit like a nutty fad in Bigotry-land.

I see where they're going with their pretty obeli; it's their badge. It shows they proudly belong to the club.

But I can't help seeing that sign as a 'symbol (†) used as a reference mark in printed matter, or to indicate that a person is deceased'. And then... my imagination, constantly on warp drive, momentarily stopped seeing these people as silly bunnies who are recycling a symbol, and I started wondering if we may be dealing with a sub-group of zombies who want to recognize one another..................... or warn the world that they're amongst us.

Perhaps we should keep an eye on the recycling Christian zombies... 

[Pockets the plot bunny for potential future use]

Writing News

Well, I've got writing news and a spot of editing news.

About my first play, Paper Cranes, my lovely, adorable brother (*waves*) kindly edited the beast. I'm still working on the cover, and I want to draw (perhaps with SketchUp if I can get it to do what I want) the four sets for the three acts.

You'll get updates about that.

I'm up to chapter 3 of my fantasy novel, Death in My District, and it's a monster plot (I already have about eighty A4 pages *gulp*).

My Sci-Fi PI stories, Muff&Sherly, were meant to be short stories, but it turns out that the very first story introducing most of the characters is going to be longer than... oh, say A Study in Scarlet, for example.

Well, it's not about length or whatever, and I think [Note self: ask my test readers for confirmation] that they don't feel long and boring. The plot bunnies are talkative, but not in a sleep-inducing way (I hope!!!).

Muff&Sherly, Story 1, shall be finished very soon, and then I'll have other plot bunnies to work on (I have eight other stories for that universe that are fully outlined, but I'll work on another universe for a bit).

Perhaps I'll work on a story about a dolphin family.

Perhaps I'll work on the mad plot that was generated when I corrected a quiz with my students: The Story of Red Riding Robin Hood and the Zombie Mutton (don't ask!).

Perhaps, and it's quite likely, I'll write the film script I've had in my head for years: the adaptation of Mireio, the novel by Mistral, (with dialogues in Provençal, which almost guarantees that it'll never be filmed, but I've been wanting to write that script for years, and I think the plot bunny just attached itself to my ankle).

I'll keep you posted on all the bunnies.

Shut Up, Never Speak Your Mind, and Just Do Your Job. That's an Order.

If I were a cat, I'd be dead (silly reference to the proverb, nothing literal).

The thing is... I did click the link. This link. Oh, yes, I did - and now, I'm annoyed and growling (that should teach me to not read so many things, but... I'm not going to change).

I'd completely missed the Coogan/Mitchell thingy, and there's something about Brand that made me avoid what he had to say (in written form, and in video with Paxman)... but I read Webb's open letter, and I liked it.

I'll admit that the title of the anti-open letter open letter intrigued me, and I did read it. Usually, the rich style would have made me happy, but several things are bothering me... deeply.

In no particular order, there's the fact that the idea of an open letter is presented as if it were something old-fashioned (how many hints about an imaginary 18th century? I didn't count, but that made me growl). 

The open letter is presented as a selfish exercise that should be limited to a regular letter sent to the intended recipient, not shown to the entire world. The targeted comedians are basically asked to limit themselves to their day job; they shouldn't show the entire world what they think of their colleagues (written in sarc font: how dare they?).

Another thing that bothers me is that comments were off "for legal reasons" on that blog entry. Ah. Okay... I seldom comment directly on newspaper webpages, or blog pages (because I don't want to create an account for that and I won't surrender my Twitter info to complete strangers - been there, blogged about it), but the fact that the rest of the world was barred from commenting on the words of someone who wants comedians to abstain from writing open letters to one another sounds ironic, in quite a not comical way - at least, to me it does sound ironic.

Then, because I was still in cat mode, I had a look at what people were tweeting on the topic, and I mostly found them praising the writer for telling comedians to shut up and be funny ('just that, no more, nothing else, we don't want to hear a thing about anything you might have to say that's unrelated to your comedian job').

I may have been living in a cave on that one, but this is the first thing I've read from this particular writer (I can't know everybody and read everything, now, can I?). I may be highly unfair to someone who seems to be appreciated by many people (the tweets about this entry were singing her praise), but I'm still deeply bothered.

There's the urge to make fun of comedians who want to speak their minds outside of their day job.

There's the will to silence them.

There's the desire to limit the interactions they, as comedians, are allowed to have. And this is a bit rich if we consider that tabloid quill-pushers (see, anyone can use old-fashioned images for whatever purpose) will comb through people's dustbins and bug their phones in order to get info to print in their fishwrappers, which people will eagerly buy because they want to read about the private lives of famous people. However, if famous people provide us with a piece of their minds, they're usually invited to shut up.

Well, I don't see why they should shut up. Everybody's allowed to speak his or her mind, and telling comedians or actors/actresses that they have to shut up is unfair, and it's not that complicated to throw the newspaper away or close the webpage.

We don't have to listen to everybody, but everybody can make a declaration (whether it's interesting or not).

Last, but perhaps not least, I find it quite ironical to complain about open letters in what looks a lot like an open letter, on which the audience cannot comment directly. 

Of course I get the 'let's cover ourselves legally by preventing a flame war in the comments section', and I do understand that this is not strictly an open letter because this particular writer was paid to type that page, whilst I guess/imagine that most of the other open letter writers mainly got the satisfaction to get their answer/comment/whatever published (or maybe they get paid, but I can't seriously be bothered to care about that detail - really).

For fun, I hope Mitchell and Webb will co-write an open letter in response to that 'comedians, be quiet' page. I'd happily read that - because I would choose to read that, and I would certainly enjoy what they'd have to say.

It's not difficult for readers to make choices, and................

Oh, sweet Merlin! <genuine epiphany alert> I've just realized why that work made me so angry: this feels like bullying-light somehow (maybe not the intention, but this is how I read it, and that's why I'm so bothered).

Part of the mystery solved. Now... to get more people to agree that everybody's got the right to write and everybody's got the right to ignore some writing and select what they'll read. Oof! Not out of the wood on that one either...

Note to self: practise more selective clicking.

Legal (& PC) Lingo

Oh, I do understand why one now has to say that the obvious, already proven culprit of a crime has to be called the "alleged" culprit, but I'm old enough to remember pre-PC time and a time when it hadn't occurred to actual culprits to sue in order to get money because newspaper "ACV" or magazine "TGH" or channel "RDO" had dared to print or say that they were the culprits before dozens of testimonies and zillions of proof had made a jury declare them guilty of the crime(s) they were standing trial for.

I do understand that.

I also know that some people are declared guilty whilst they're innocent. But, I'm not talking about them... I'm talking about the real bad guys who are caught red-handed and with their lucid victim(s) saying 'That's him/her!'.

I understand that now, until we get the final verdict from the approved jury, we've got to say "alleged" culprit... but that sucks in a few cases.