Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - Pál Csontos: Is Political Correctness Politically Correct? A Tour along the Alleyways of the Shambles Called Political Correctness

The inflated style is itself a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and. covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. ("Politics" 173) For some reasons, these were the words I involuntarily kept recalling when, as the initial stage of a first-hand experience, 1 was browsing through the entries of the The Official Politically Correct Dictionary and Handbook, and also later, when one of my colleagues called my attention to another related publication called Are You PC? 101 Questions to Determine if You Are Politically Correct. The instruction on the back cover of the latter "processed tree carcass" reminded me of the author of Animal Farm again. It goes, "Answer the following questions as honestly as possible. There are no right answers, but some are more correct than others." It seems obvious that these two publications do not carry the label 'Humor' in their Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for nothing and, because of that, they are supposed to be appreciated in like fashion. Nevertheless, I started wondering about the "earlywarning" function of literature and, gradually, all sorts of related questions emerged in me, and I could only conjecture about the answers. However, before I launch into listing these questions and queries, there are a few other issues 1 hope to clarify, or at least recapitulate. First of all, I will concentrate on yet another source that can illuminate to us why the development of certain patterns in (American) English usage can cause concern. The author's name is Paul Fussell. In Bad or, the dumbing of America, the chapter on "BAD Language," as one of 31 chapters seconding the statement that "nothing will thrive unless inflated by hyperbole and gilded with a fine coat of fraud," offers an insight into how in BAD language there must be "an impulse to deceive, to shade the unpleasant or promote the ordinary to the desirable or the wonderful, to elevate the worthless by a hearty layingon of the pretentious" (101). From the simple examples of "discipline" used for "field" or "subject," or "motion sickness" used for "nausea," through "vice president, merchandising" used for "salesman," Fussell demonstrates 25