Concerning My Fear of Words of Politically Correctness and Ms. Long, My English English Teacher I have long been reluctant to adopt new politically correct words, and my reluctance to adapt to the adoption of politically correct words is not my fault. You can blame it on Ms. Long, a fourth period, tenth grade, ninety-year old English teacher who was a teacher of English. Ms. Long was a no-nonsense nonagenarian prescriptive grammarian who quoted Shakespeare almost as easily as I dangled my modifiers and sliced my infinitives, or was that suspended my modifiers and spit on my infinitives: Only Ms. Long would remember for sure. Ms. Long, a short woman, short on humor and short on patience, had short curly white hair and short bony fingers, and an accusatory index finger on her right hand that pointed at me as often as the needle on a compass points North. To be fair to Ms. Long, the pointing accusatory index finger routine came after I had defiantly declared myself a descriptive grammarian over Ms. Long’s objections. A prescriptive grammarian English teacher teaching a descriptive grammarian student is not a pretty thing and can be one of the most difficult teaching situations for an English teacher who teaches English. That is why I always vote for teacher raises: to honor Ms. Long. The long difficult year of Ms. Long’s attempt to convert me to a prescriptive grammarian scholar left us both extremely tired and happy when the year ended. While I never conceded that I was wrong, she did help me become a believer that the English language should be syntactically, grammatically, and vocabularily slow to change. For Ms. Long, the idea that just any yahoo could vocabularize a new word into the English language was an anathema. Ms. Long, who retired at the beginning of the summer after my release from tenth grade, would hold in contempt my previous sentence that subtlety counter balances the formal word yahoo with the informal word anathema, and would, after calling me by my formal title of Mr. Stoner, dare me to go to the board and diagram the sentence (she would have double-dared me to diagram this sentence.) Although my classmates loved my creative diagramming at the blackboard, Ms. Long, who was the author of three didactic diagramming books and disliked creativity, recoiled at my style of creativity which she said was clearly more creative than all of her previous students put together; she was stunned when I thanked her and said she made me proudest of all. All year long I thought Ms. Long’s apoplectic harrumphs when I was at the blackboard were an age related issue of throat clearing, but, just before summer vacation, I learned that Ms. Long only harrumphed during fourth period, and only when I was at the blackboard, and that was why I could notice it. In our year book, Ms. Long was the first English teacher who was a teacher of English that was listed with super powers. I was told by my classmates that when I was at the blackboard diagramming my sentences containing my new vocabularized words, Ms. Longs eyes would burn into the back of my head as her right index finger pointed at me and pulsed with the same beat as the drummer of Iron Butterfly playing his solo part in In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda. They said that part way through my diagramming of a particular favorite sentence of mine her mouth opened, but nothing would come out but an occasional apoplectic harrumph, and eventually she rested her head on on the palm of her left hand until I finished diagramming my sentence, whereupon she harrumphed silently until I returned to my seat. My classmates said they were most impressed when her eyes were burning into the back of my head and they thought they could actually see small wisps of smoke. I did not believe them until after I got married. Keiko and I were sitting on the couch and watching a romantic movie when she casually reached up and ran her fingers through the hair on the back of my head and then asked me if I knew I had two bald spots on the back of my head that the barbers had thoughtfully let the hair grow over. Anyway, now you know why it has been a long difficult task to accept politically correct words. However, being an amateur linguist—which means I know what one is—I thought it would be wise to at least consider being political correct in a politically correct society, not withstanding Ms. Long a long time ago gave up turning over in her grave. After Googling, Binging, and Yahooing the topic of political correct and politically incorrect terms, I was totally amazed at the total amount of politically correct information on the political correctness of politically correct words and politically incorrect words. So, thirteen days ago, I made the decision to put the power of political correctness of politically correct words to the test. I had mixed results. Okay, I had all bad results. Fortunately, when I went to get a haircut I discovered a piece of vital information that helped deliver me from my dilemma of incorrectly using politically correctness. You know barbers; they are the ultimate source of knowledge. They are better than iPads and are considerably cheaper. Well, my barber set me straight. I did not know it, because my Googling, Binging, and Yahooing, did not reveal it to me, but using the words politically correct is actually politically incorrect. Who knew? So, ten days ago I gave up on trying to be politically correct after I went to get haircut. Even after I swore off being politically correct, I had bad luck with politically correctness. I forgot that I had upgraded my resume. Trying to be politically correct, under the section where I listed my core competencies, I claimed to be an undocumented genius. Not only did I not get the job, I was asked to never submit another resume. Oh, darn! I just scratched the back of my head. No wonder my barber was laughing when I left. He cut my hair too short. The two bald spots are sticking out. To make worse, he had used a sharpie to make it look like I had eyes in the back of my head. No wonder Keiko was laughing. Wait, what’s that? Oh yeah! I hear Ms. Long turning over in her grave, no doubt laughing, and laughing, and laughing!
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 16:14:18 +0000
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