The joys of being politically fucking correct

There is a condition in warfare -most people know about it- it’s when a soldier’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s peak and the nervous system has (or is about to) snapped. In the First World War, this condition was known as “shellshock“. Two syllables, simple and honest. Twenty one years later we had the Second World War and the very same condition was known as “battle fatigue,” a little longer and it seems a little less harsh. If that wasn’t enough, after the Korean war that very same condition was known as “Operational Exhaustion,” and finally, after the Vietnam war that same condition was now known as “post traumatic stress disorder.”

People may wonder what this has to do with first year students, and the answer is that the effects of being obligated to being Politically Correct or using euphemisms has far reaching consequences. In my opinion, euphemisms are a travesty. In this new day and age, we as first year students are pretty much obligated to being politically correct for the sake of preserving the feelings of others. For example, we are now made to refer to old people as “senior citizens.” Is that not grotesque enough? Of course no one wants to get old but it’s a natural part of life, and by not calling someone old and instead referring to them as “senior citizens” is not going to make them any younger, it’s not going to make your life any longer, you are not prolonging your death, you are eventually going to die! Oops! Did I say die? I meant “pass away.” And we don’t have any cripples or handicapped people in the world anymore. We shipped them all away and brought back “the physically challenged.” Do people actually think that by changing the name of the condition you are actually going to somehow change the condition? To put it in comedian George Carlin’s words, “euphemisms are getting so bad that any day now we are going to be asked to refer to rape victims as unwilling sperm recipients!”

It is time for people to let go of this ideology that being politically correct is the way to go, it is just away for some people to avoid a harsh inevitable reality or for others to feel smug that they are “educated” and “liberal” for using such correct terminology. It is time to use the original words, so that war veterans’ pain will not get buried under jargon, they can get the sympathy they deserve, because really, “shellshock” has a bigger impact on people and it promotes sympathy, whilst “post traumatic stress disorder” makes them seem like retards, Oops! Did I say retard? I meant “mentally challenged.” And they are not “Home Executives” they are “house wives,” and they are not “Glass Maintenance Engineers” they are “Window Cleaners,” and please, for the love of God let’s get rid of these “canine control officers” and bring back our beloved dog catchers!

Euphemisms are a travesty, and by reverting back to original phrasing we are reverting back to the words that best describe the condition or act, not this crappy jargon that people use now to feel better about themselves.