Short
Arnold
Lara MLow Food Security
November 28th 2006 02:20
Political correctness is something that annoys a lot of people. We’re now supposed to dwarves ‘little people’ and call fairy penguins ‘little penguins’ in case homosexuals get offended. But having vaguely studied semiotics I can understand why this is an issue. It is an attempt to remove damaging connotations from words in order to create new, less offensive meanings. For example ‘little people’ does not have the same bearded, axe wielding connotations. Similarly people can reclaim words by using them in new contexts, such as the words ‘fag’ and ‘wog’ have been adopted by those they were previously used derogatorily against, thus removing some social prejudice from the words.
HOWEVER, it is not ok to do this in order to manipulate a word’s meaning in a misleading way. Which brings me to the most recent report of the US department of Agriculture. In an attempt to mask the situation of almost 11 million Americans who go hungry each year they have this year decided to replace the word ‘hunger’ with the words ‘very low food security’. Low food security? Sort of implies that their food could be easily stolen, or perhaps they are insecure about food like an anorexic person. This is a gross misrepresentation of a very serious national problem.
REF: http://www.smh.com.au
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/660959
HOWEVER, it is not ok to do this in order to manipulate a word’s meaning in a misleading way. Which brings me to the most recent report of the US department of Agriculture. In an attempt to mask the situation of almost 11 million Americans who go hungry each year they have this year decided to replace the word ‘hunger’ with the words ‘very low food security’. Low food security? Sort of implies that their food could be easily stolen, or perhaps they are insecure about food like an anorexic person. This is a gross misrepresentation of a very serious national problem.
REF: http://www.smh.com.au
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Comment by Adele
Lost Fanatic
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You make a good point. There is no good reaon to obscure the fact that these people are hungry.
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