Friday, July 14, 2017

No More Ladies and Gentlemen

My American and other international readers may not have heard that London Underground announcers will no longer use the term "ladies and gentlemen".

I find this deeply depressing. Deeply, deeply depressing. I'm not joking. This is the most depressing news I've heard all year.

And if you say: "Really? More depressing than terrorist attackis and burning towers?", I would say: "Yes, really." Because we expect a certain amount of tragedies and outrages to happen every year, but this is something entirely different and disturbing.

People are treating this as a joke. I don't think it's a joke. I think it's heart-breaking. Nothing seems to deter the onward march of PC-- not Donald Trump, not Brexit, not Milo Yiannapoulos, not the Alt Right, nothing.

I'm not going to buy the whole "you can overreact to political correctness" thing. I don't think it's even possible to overreact to PC. I think we need to push against it as hard as we possibly can, the only inhibiting factor being how much danger we are putting ourselves in.

5 comments:

  1. Yes, I think your position is entirely reasonable. Ifind the replacement 'Hello, everyone' sinister, Orwellian, all the rest of it.

    I think it's not so much that someone has come up with the idea, which might be the easiest thing in the world to dream up, but that it has so suddenly been implemented, and that common sense has not restrained it. There it is, a reality, out of nowhere as far as I can tell. It drives home the impression of a culture shock inflicted on me by the capital city in whose suburbs I have grown up and spent almost all my life.

    My loyalty as a South Londoner to the suburban surface railways has been redoubled!

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    Replies
    1. Well, the extraordinary thing is that I posted this less than a month ago on the Irish Conservatives Forum:

      "It's often seemed strange to me that this phrase, and its constituent elements, hasn't really come under attack in our era. It seems to reflect so many things the spirit of the age hates; sexual difference, gentility, courtesy, demureness, breeding etc. etc.

      Am I overthinking? Am I getting paranoid?"

      Evidently not.

      The Guardian was actually praising it, although their commenters seemed to be universally hostile.

      I don't mind "Hello, everyone", although it's rather dull. Actually, "hello" is my universal greeting, because I can never think fast enough to remember if it's morning, afternoon, evening or night.

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    2. I suppose I mean that the 'Hello, everyone', as it will henceforth be heard across the Underground, will not have the reassuring effect on me that it should have.

      I fear my instinct is to plump for 'Morning' regardless

      Delete
    3. I suppose I mean that the 'Hello, everyone', as it will henceforth be heard across the Underground, will not have the reassuring effect on me that it should have.

      I fear my instinct is to plump for 'Morning' regardless of the time!

      Delete
  2. And apparently staff who do not fall into line and continue to use the term 'ladies and gentlemen' will be taken to task over it ...

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