You can always tell when people are jobless. They don’t just sit around doing nothing as you might expect. They go out and see how they can irritate other people. One guaranteed way of doing this is to insist on political correctness of rare silliness. That way they can kill two birds with one stone — pretend to work and contribute to the stock of humour in the world.
Did you find anything offensive in the preceding paragraph? No? Then you are sane, normal, and possibly human. If not, and the expression ‘kill two birds with one stone’ startled you and made you want to dash off a letter to the UN, then decide if you prefer being lion-hearted or loin-hearted.
Some of us have found a new battleground. Wars and hunger and pestilence and trolling are passé. People who object to that phrase — and others containing animal references — take offence on behalf of said animals. “What is all this about killing two birds with one stone?” they ask, “Do you know how bad it makes birds feel? From here on say ‘feed two birds with one scone’ to mean the same thing.”
Also banned, to their way of thinking is, “beat a dead horse”, to be substituted with “feed a fed horse”. Don’t say “take the bull by the horns”. Instead say, “take the flower by the thorns.” No more being a guinea pig or bringing home the bacon. Or eating crow.
It is “speciesism” they object to, the manner of treating animals like animals. I have been saying that it is raining cats and dogs for years now without either a cat or a dog objecting, but those glory days are coming to an end apparently.
What those who wish to clean up our language don’t seem to understand, however, is that such substitutes might offend birds who hate scones, and people who are scratched by thorns, not to speak of horses who are on a diet.
Social justice warriors (that sounds vaguely offensive too) know there is more than one way to skin a cat, or, as they might say, more than one way to bin a mat. With a little effort (and often with no effort at all), you can take offence at the most innocuous things. “The cat sat on the mat”, for example, might be insulting to cats who sit on sofas, and the mite who live in mats.
What of names of countries and cities? Turkey, Buffalo and so on? If you think our friends from PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, for it is this lot which is trying to rid us of anti-animal language) want to change these names too, well, you are right. That is the elephant in the room, or as they might say, yellow paint on the broom.
If you are wondering what else, have no fear. For curiosity thrilled the cat. Personally, I don’t give a rodent’s donkey, I have other fish to fry.
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)
