Thursday, 21 February 2019

Forbidden words

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

T. S. Eliot

History has shown us that it's not religion that's the problem, but any system of thought that insists that one group of people are inviolably in the right, whereas the others are in the wrong and must somehow be punished.

Rod Liddle
Here is the full list of the banned words I used: active homosexual; career women; Third World; blacks; Asians; Australasia; Bangalore; primitive African
tribes; crippled; in a wheelchair; hare lip; ethnic minorities; handicapped; spinster; committed suicide; gypsies; Bombay; illegitimate daughter; air hostess; Siamese twins; Calcutta; deaf ears; illegal asylum seeker; province of Northern Ireland; grandmother; bachelor.
Rod Liddle in 2008, referring to words banned by the Guardian's style guide.


A Welsh university has been accused of censorship after banning the use of terms such as “right-hand man”, “waitress” and “forefathers” on campus in a crackdown on gendered language.

Students and staff at Cardiff Metropolitan University could face “disciplinary procedures” if they fail to adhere to the institution’s language policy, which states that terms such as “mankind”, “housewife” and “man-made” should be avoided.
...The policy also dictates that the phrases “homosexual” and “heterosexual” should not be used as they are “laden with the values of a previous time”.

“Referring to ‘same-sex’ and ‘other-sex’ relationships is a good option,” the document reads.

“Nobody likes being lumped together in a group, so try to avoid generalised terms such as ‘the disabled’, ‘the blind’,” it continues.

“’Disabled people’ is preferable to ‘the disabled’ or ‘people with disabilities’ as it emphasises that the people are disabled by a society which doesn’t accommodate them.
“Don’t be too anxious about the use of language, though,” the policy adds.

“Blind people do use terms like ‘see you later’ and being too careful can make conversation difficult for both parties.”

In various newspapers in March 2017 


“Quand les libéraux sont au pouvoir, nous leur demandons la liberté, parce que c’est leur principe; et, quand nous sommes au pouvoir, nous la leur refusons, parce que c’est le nôtre.”
Liberal Catholic the Comte de Montalembert, putting words in the mouth of the ultramontane Louis Veuillot.

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