Quote of the day.

[reddragdiva]

When I see terms like "technically correct" or "politically correct", I think these words were written by someone who has been wrong for so long, and finds it so painful to make corrections, that the last resort is to ridicule correctness, like that kid in the back of the class who doesn't know the answer and so mocks the teacher.

—FreeChief on Groklaw

Comments

[ianthes.livejournal.com]

Along the same lines, what do you think about the phrase "arguably the best"? Are these people looking for a fight? Or, perhaps they're simply not confident enough in their opinions to say something is indeed the best.

[heliumbreath.livejournal.com]

Not really; those phrases are both quite usable to describe something that has that one carefully-polished facet of correctness while missing the whole rest of the point.

[reddragdiva]

Your reply is technically correct.

[damerell.livejournal.com]

"Technically correct" at least means what it says; "politically correct", these days, is usually used to mean any old thing the speaker dislikes.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Umm, "technically correct" and "politically correct" describe two orthogonally different situations. I can't fathom how anyone could lump them in a complaint as if they shared anything beyond the word "correct".

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

In fact, after reading the comment that FreeChief is complaining about, he's merely complaining about phrasing. It's a clever quip but it's an effectively empty rebuttal.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

'Technically correct' means 'correct but useless'. 'Politically correct' is a codeword.

Sometimes, it's important to ridicule correctness, because the idea that there can be a right and wrong in a given context is not always accurate or useful.

(Nice example of an analogy structured to reinforce the underlying snark there, by the way.)

[reddragdiva]

I'm old enough to remember when "politically correct" was "ideologically sound" as a positive thing, and still speak Ideologically Sound as a second language.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Is that a sign of being old? I keep kidding myself it's a sign of Being Foreign.

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

When did you start speaking whatever it is that sentence is made up of?

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

"I want you to think it's the best, but I don't have any reason to say so and I'd be quickly proven wrong if I tried"

[ianthes.livejournal.com]

That sums it up!

[reddragdiva]

It was *invented* here, then fell out of disuse.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I can't stand it when people accuse something of being politically correct - whilst there may be a few cases of mad political correctness, in most cases, as damerell says, it's used to describe anything that the person dislikes, whether or not it has anything to do with changing language to avoid offense.

I think most supposed cases of political correctness seem to be blown out of proportion, and probably nothing to do with political correctness anyway (e.g., "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep" was apparently just two nurseries, and the move was intended to be educational, and not due to racial concerns). I've never heard a source for the often quoted "vertically challenged" (and it may stem from Politically Correct Bedtime Stories which was a parody).

It also only seems to be offensive things towards black people, gay people etc that gets labelled "PC gone mad", but not things that might offend white Christian Daily Mail readers, and more serious issues of censorship (e.g., censorship laws that are there because some people are offended by words or pictures) get ignored.