Government quangos have once again been busy wasting taxpayer money to come up with more phrases they consider should be ‘banned’ under the pretext of political correctness in order to avoid possible offence.
‘Gentleman’s agreement’ is considered sexist and offensive to women and should be replaced by ‘unwritten agreement’ or ‘agreement based on trust’.
‘Black day’ is considered to imply a hierarchical valuation of skin colour and should be replaced by ‘miserable day’.
Rather than ‘mastering’ a brief, the suggested alternative is to ‘perfect’ a brief. The term ‘master nedroom’ is also under threat.
‘Right-hand man’ is a no-no, the preferred option being ‘second in command’.
Phrases such as ‘black sheep of the family’, ‘black looks’ and ‘black mark’ have been deemed to have no direct link to skin colour BUT could potentially serve to reinforce a negative view of all things black.
However, certain terms imply a negative image of black by reinforcing the positive aspects of white, which would mean that out goes ‘whiter than white’ and in comes either ‘cleaner than clean’ or ‘purer than pure’ as these do not infer that anything other than white should be regarded with suspicion.
There is even a suggestion that the phrase ‘ethnic minority’ should be used with caution as it might imply that something is smaller and therefore of lesser importance.
Sounds like it’s time these people got proper jobs and stopped wasting everybody’s time and money!