POLITICALLY CORRECT LANGUAGE

USUAL TERM POLITICALLY CORRECT TERM

fireman firefighter
mailman mail carrier
policeman police officer
maiden name birth name
chairman chairperson
manslaughter human slaughter
killing harvesting / neutralizing
bombing 1) visiting a site; 2) servicing a target / air
support; 3) armed reconnaissance
search and destroy reconnaissance
spying surveillance
an attack on one’s own troops or allies 1) friendly fire; 2) incontinent ordinance; 3)
accidental delivery of ordinance
targets: 1) soft targets = people; 2) hard targets –
they refer to buildings, cities, weapons, guns…
conquest liberation
war combat / conflict
a car bomb VBIED – Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive
Device
teaching English as a foreign language teaching English as an alternative language
mentally and physically disabled…disabled / differently abled => it underlines the concept
handicapped that differently abled individuals are in no way
inferior
the handicapped 1) people with disabilities; 2) persons with
disabilities
Mongoloid a person with Down Syndrome
wheelchair-bound person who uses a wheelchair
AIDS sufferer / AIDS victim 1) a person living with AIDS; 2) HIV + (one who
tests positive for HIV, but does not show
symptoms of AIDS).
abortion termination (you terminate pregnancy, which is a
state or condition, but you abort a fetus, which is
a human being – so, abortion is non-PC.
blacks African-American
Asiatic /Oriental Pacific Islander / Korean, Chinese American
Indian American Indian /Native American
Eskimo Inuit / Alaska Natives / Native Alaskan
Aborigines Aboriginal people
queer (used by these who insist that gay people gay /lesbian / bisexual / transgendered
are moral degenerates) / poof (including transvestite and transsexual persons)
sex change gender reassignment
homosexuals and lesbians gays and partners
prejudice against GLBT homophobia
 the exclusion of GLBT heterosexism
the belief that appearance is the indicator of lookism
person’s value
the tendency of the dominant culture media to facism
present pictures of men from the neck up only,
but to show the entire bodies of women
antonym of facism bodism
military term referring to the blast center of a Ground Zero
bomb explosion (describes the World Trade
Center site)