Political correctness - Examples of language modification - Encyclopedia II

• The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
• Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
• Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
• Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
• Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
• Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
• "To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• "Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
• Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
• The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
• Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
• TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
• The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
• Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
• The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
• The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
• Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.

Main article: List of disability-related terms with negative connotations

• A cripple became an invalid, and proceeded through a long sequence of euphemisms, including disabled, handicapped, then disabled again, people with disabilities, differently abled, and physically challenged. In 1991, the National Cristina Foundation offered $50,000 to the person who came up with the most empowering term for people with disabilities. The winning entry was "people with differing abilities," and is seldom used by researchers, the disabled, or their care providers. Another entry in that contest was "severely euphemized."

• Backward, imbecile, moron, and idiot became mentally retarded, which in turn became slow, then mentally handicapped, then mentally disabled, then mentally challenged. Modern terms used by health and social care professionals include special needs and learning difficulties, although both of those terms are more general than mentally retarded. This has leaked over into tainting the phrase idiot savant so that the word savant can no longer be used to mean someone profoundly knowledgeable, as it still is in French.

• Impotence has become Erectile dysfunction.

Many terms that were once considered acceptable, even in the medical profession, are now considered out-of-date and offensive. These include spastic for a person with cerebral palsy and mongolism (sometimes mongolian idiocy) for Down Syndrome.

Some argue that an unintended consequence of the euphemisms for "crippled", a term which merely describes a physical condition, is that the euphemisms contain a message that subliminally tells the persons so-labeled that they should feel resigned to their fate. Famous Baseball team owner Bill Veeck, who had lost a leg due to an injury incurred during World War II, took notable exception to that viewpoint, writing the following in the last chapter of his 1962 autobiography, Veeck - As in Wreck, titled "I'm not handicapped; I'm crippled":

In more recent times, Christopher Reeve very publicly adopted a similar attitude, and became a hero to many other paralysis victims, much to the chagrin of what could be called the "physically challenged establishment", some of whom criticized him for characterizing his condition as something that needed to be cured, rather than resigning himself to it. [4] In contrast, it was said of the tireless lobbyist Reeve that, "The man who cannot move has not stopped moving." [5]

The National Federation of the Blind has passed a resolution condemning the use of politically correct terms to describe blindness. Similarly, many autistics condemn the phrase "person with autism" because it separates their personhood from their autism, something those in the autistic culture refuse to accept, as they regard autism to be an integral and wonderful component of themselves. Those in deaf culture similary dislike such phraseology. As a result, a major and commonly raised objection to such terms is that they go against the very wishes of those at whom they are href = "http://www.experiencefestival.com/2_december">2 December, 2005, 24 November, 27 November, 28 November, 30 November, AFGNCAAP, African-Americans, Aleut, Alternative political spellings, American Family Association, Anno Domini, Antioch, Asian-American, Australian,

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