The Politically Correct Plague

This thread should have been titled The Plague of Political Correctness but The Politically Correct Plague seemed fancier to me. Anyway, a plague of political corretness has to be politicallly correct, that is a poliotically correct plague right? Before you start pulling your hair, move on to read further.

Politicfal correctness is a real plague nowadays pervading sorry infecting every walk of life. Take the case of a south Indian restaurant in Delhi I visited recently. After a sumptuous meal, the waiter brought in the dessert, a plateful of delicious suji halwa, dripping with ghee and almost covered with dry fruits and nuts..

After finishing it, in the delusion that I was paying a compliment I told the waiter: "The halwa was great!!"

"Halwa sir? said the waiter looking offended. but not puzzled.. "That was a pudding"

"Pudding?" I said laughing. " I have been eating Suji Halwa aka Rawa Kesari for donkey's years. I know it when I see a plate of it,"

"Semolina pudding sir," the waiter said firmly. "Not halwa".

He didn't add "The chef thinks it is politically incorrect to call it Suji Halwa or Rawa Kesari"..But I got the message.

A few days later a friend of mine had to buy a car for his office but his skinflint bosses didn'didn't want to spend money on a brand new one and decided to go for a second-hand vehicle instead. I accompanied him to a dealer and found that second hand was no longer second hand.

The dealer. it turned out, sold "pre-owned" cars. He frowned when my friend used the term "second hand". "Pre-owned" he said putting on the air of the abovementioned waiter.

"What is the difference?" I asked.

"If you call the car pre-owned it has buyers. But if we call it second hand it is bad for business, As long as I was known as second-hand car dealer I remained single. When I became a pre-owned car dealer I got married, Nobody wants to marry a second-hand car dealer," "he said. Political correctness ruled the second -hand oops sorry pre-owned car market too even when many of the cars appeared to be in a bad condition, sorry mechanically or electrically challenged condition.

Here is a great idea. Those who want to marry a second time after divorce or widowhood wouldl probably have better luck if they described themselves as pre-owned husbands/wives.

And political correctness can be a boon too particularly in these times of economic meltdown when lot of people are losing their jobs. Many bosses have pangs of conscience when they sack their employees and spend sleepless nights worrying about the fate of their ex-workers. Here is where political correctness helps in keeping away a guilt complex.

Thus .bosses no longer sack their employees. Terms like sack or dismiss are taboo as they are politically incorrect. They instead get RIFfed. That is right RIFfed (not to be confused with miffed which they are bound to be when they are jobess). RI F stands for reduction in force. A great term that should make pink slips look a little less pink.

Or how about Rationalising? One can always call the employee and tell him in a cheery manner that he is part of a process of rationalisation and congratulate him for it. Then put him on the road. Don't worry, be happy. You have been politically correct .Never mind if the ex-employee gets de-verticalised (That is the politically correct term for fainting on hearing the bad news and falling in a horizontal position).

Or the boss man could do a synergy-related headcount adjustment. If your head is missing in the count that is not his problem. . There should be a dictionary for such concepts so that companies can sack their staff and the top honchos can sleep in peace.

And political correctness probably could help in mitigating the severity of serious crimes like robbery and murder. A time would come when it would be politically incorrect to call robbery by that name. It would probably be called FDA (forcible deprivation of assets). . That way it would be difficult to distinguish between robbers and taxmen,. They (robbers not taxmen) would probably get shorter terms because of that. and we can prevent overcrowding of jails.

Imagine the glorious future when a murderer is hauled up before a politically-incorrect judge. When the judge asks him whether he pleads guilty or not-guilty for murder he would reply indignantly that he didn't murder anyone but just RILSed a person.

To the puzzled judge he would explain that RILSing is the politically correct term now and stands for Reduction in Life Span.

Or would "Disexist" be the more correct term for what we politically-incorrect call murder? May be LEd (Life Extinguished) would be more politically correct.

PS: Dear reader, if you are not already bald, I am sure you will thank me for saving you the frequent barber's expenses with this blog. If your hair doesn't fall off or you don't pull it off on the first reading of this piece, I am sure repeated readings wil induce you to do it...

 

Kamalji, do I think up these blogs in loo? Why, do they stink?

 

OJ, for an American a loo is not even a loo it is a washroom! All these terms dont make the ideas, people or places appear any better than what they already are..

 

Phalguni, lot of maids need to be called domestic hindrances! Home Manger! I like that term.