With our first issue out of the way, I'm tasked with another column of 750 or so words to sum up my increasing frustration with censorship. Ironically, just this week, the Telegraph decided to declare 9 more words of the English language “persona non grata” and insist we use their new sanitised versions instead. This might be the last time you ever see them in print, so here goes:
1) Gay
2) Retarded
3) Rapey
4) Spastic
5) Paedo
6) Half-caste
7) Cretin
8) Dyke
9) Special
All perfectly legal words, all found in the Oxford English dictionary yet suddenly deemed “offensive” and therefore to be erased from our collective Groupspeak. No one consulted, no votes, just remove them from use lest anyone choose to take offence. This all stems from an earlier item this week where Benedict Cumberpatch was globally crucified for committing the heinous crime of referring to black actors as “coloured” instead of the universally approved “actors of colour”. Naturally, he has apologised and with luck, he'll find work again soon and the ensuing riots will calm down. Not to be outdone, the diabetics piled in and demanded the script to Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory be edited as they were “offended” by lines relating to eating too much chocolate causing diabetes (no, I'm not making this up) and then Israel decided to boycott the town of Mevagissy in Cornwall because a country walk named after a particularly dictatorial local council officer nicknamed Hitler had been signposted as “Hitler's walk” (no, I'm really not making this up), shortly followed by the head of BBC World deciding
that Jihadi's who happily blow up tube trains and cut the heads off Japanese journalists should not be referred to as “terrorists” as it might harm their global image.
As avid readers of Orwell's 1984 understand well enough, when you seek to control a language, you seek to control thought. IngSoc created NewsSpeak, GroupThink and DuckSpeak as methods of controlling free thought insofar as if you remove the ability formulate a thought using words, you can no longer communicate that thought to others. The goal was to create a society of non thinking, obedient drones, unable to even formulate or articulate a revolutionary thought. And that's right where we're headed under the guise of the “offended”.
Have a quick look at the picture below of words no longer deemed “suitable” by a particular football club. You can be booted out of their premises for even muttering them in public. When exactly do we draw a line in the sand and say “leave our language alone”?
Britain's Vilest Troll - Daily Mail. Award winning Columnist, Satirist, Libertarian legend. Champion of Free Speech and a Free Society.