B) Now try to fill in the gaps with the words given above.

1. On this night, Auburn athletics director Mike Lude has been chartered in on a private plane to inform and amuse the guys. At 70, he talks of being "_________."

2. Eventually, the concept was taken to its absurd extreme, culminating in parodies such as the "Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook" (New York City: Villard Books, 1992), in which bald persons are described as "_______" and short persons are "__________. "

3. Although it may be that someone somewhere actually argued seriously that short people ought to be called _________ or that pets ought to be called ________, for instance, I'm convinced that by now most of the bizarre euphemisms identified with political correctness were invented in the course of making fun of it.

4. Never mind that her daily regimen included vodka-spiked tea at breakfast, a ________, an afternoon pass-out - sometimes face-first in a bar parking lot -- and a cocktail hour that lasted through dinner and on past when my father fell asleep to Johnny Carson's monologue. The irony was lost on her.

5. U.S. State Department estimates that approximately 800,000 new victims fall prey to transnational commercial sexual exploitation each year. Globalization has allowed the _________ in the world to go global.

6. "Let her get to trust you," Bic had instructed. "All these real estate agents are taught to keep an eye on prospective buyers so they don't get ________ when they're being shown around houses.

7. Did Ms. Berenson, once an A student at La Guardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts, merely follow a long-standing desire to help _______ and become friendly with members of the Tupac Amaru, whom she believed had renounced a violent past?

8. You are already helping by setting a good example as you treat ________ people with kindness and respect. They want to be accepted and loved just like everyone else does.

9. About 40,000 older Georgians receive benefits from federal programs for the elderly. Federal dollars pay for _________ centers and provide in-home care to seniors who are homebound.

10. Piper had to close down for two weeks in February because of ________. It has since extended its line of credit, raised the price on the Cadet, to $59,000, stretched out its production schedules and speeded up deliveries of higher-margin, larger plane orders to bring cash into the coffers.

c) Compare your answers with a partner.

d) Go back to questions from the previous exercise and discuss them concerning the euphemisms from this exercise.

3. Look at two web pages from an on-line translator below. What do they illustrate? Does political correctness pose any difficulties for translators and interpreters?

4. What is political correctness? Does the term ‘political correctness’ overlap with ‘euphemism’? What is the difference?

The use of political language modification has a history in satire and comedy. One of the earlier, and most well-known, satirical takes on this movement can be found in the book Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Gardner, in which traditional fairy tales are rewritten from an exaggeratedly-PC viewpoint. The roles of good and evil in these PC stories are often the reverse of those in the original versions, with the goal of showing that political correctness ignores or inverts morality.

1) Read an extract from J.F. Gardner’s Politically Correct Bedtime Stories. Underline the words and expressions which are exaggeratedly politically correct. What do they stand for? Why?

Snow White
Once there was a young princess who was not at all unpleasant to look at and had a temperament that many found to be more pleasant than most other people’s. Her nickname was Snow White, indicating of the discriminatory notions of associating pleasant or attractive qualities with light, and unpleasant or unattractive qualities with darkness. Thus, at an early age Snow White was an unwilling if fortunate target for this type of colorist thinking.
(From Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by J.F. Gardner. - New York, Toronto, Oxford, Singapore, Sydney, 1994.)

2) Is it a good idea to rewrite famous works of literature to make them more politically correct? Discuss with your class.

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