The public editor of the Chicago Tribune wrote an article about the evolution of language, especially for the newspapers. Of course, they have to have a pulse on political correctness, too.

It was interesting to me that there have been complaints about the use of the "Old Testament." Apparently some Jews (not me) take offense because we don't have a "New Testament." One complainer suggested calling it the "Hebrew Bible" instead...or perhaps an even better term would be "Tanak," the reader says, which is an acronym for the five books of the Torah. Other suggestions have been "First Testament" or "Early Scriptures." As the public editor says, those would most likely cause confusion. Still, it's an interesting point. Have you only seen "Old Testament?" That's mostly what I've seen (except of course in the synagogue!)

The article made me realize how important language use (and evolution) is to newspapers and the media. He brought up old controversies, such as using "undocumented immigrants," instead of "illegal aliens." Another we've discussed was calling Katrina evacuees "refugees." The oddest to me was "a medical procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation that opponents call 'partial-birth abortion,'" instead of "partial-birth abortion." Then there was the use of "terrorist" for all opponents, thus devaluing the word.

What other terms have you seen the media using in their quest for political correctness...and yet for clarity...and also for keeping up with the evolution of language?

Well there is the use of BCE instead of BC and CE instead of AD. Does that count?


See here.

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that opponents call 'partial-birth abortion,'" instead of "partial-birth abortion."

I can see no difference apart from the quotation marks. Is that correct? And if so, what difference does quotation mark style make to the meaning?

I suppose "BCE" sounds better than "BM," (Before Messiah) The problem is that nobody really knows when Yeshua of Nazareth, the supposed messiah, was born, so it's all arbitrary.

We're into a couple of issues here, one being so-called cultural literacy, the other being Chomsky's "Necessary Illusions." It seems to me that language is tied to cultural mythos, quite apart from any observed reality.

We have to keep remembering that things don't have names. They just are. We humans, in our compulsion to organize things, give names. Adam didn't say to Eve, "Smile, we're in the Old Testament." The Scriptures were handed down orally until someone gave them a name. What we call the New Testament was probably a collection of stories told by itinerant preachers until someone wrote them down.

Nowhere is the futility of trying to name things more obvious than in the biological sciences. Biologists study life, but they are unable to define life. We do the best we can with terms that work. "Old Testament" has meaning to the general public. If you are communicating to a smaller group, e.g. a Jewish audience, another term might be more meaningful. I can't see that "Old Testament" would be offensive. It can re-enforce the idea that the "Jewish Bible" is indeed old, the root from which newer religious ideas spring.

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They just are

Oops! I was trying to italicise "are."

I'm loving the footnotes on this dictionary definition of "challenged"

Perhaps we can credit the www for the swiftness with which a 'politically correct' term in its infancy has officially become a spoof of itself.

The Christian Old Testament and the Jewish scriptures differ in subtle ways. The Christian text was originally the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, although some modern bibles translated the Hebrew text directly.

More importantly, the books of the Christian OT are in a different order than in the Hebrew version. The Jewish scriptures end with Daniel, while the OT ends with the books of the prophets and their visions of the coming Messiah.

Yes, neveu, the article did say, "There was also a problem in that Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism don't agree on which books are included, and in which order." Clearly there are other concerns, besides just the names.

Richard, as to your concern, I had meant to say that the media uses those verbal gymnastics (I love that phrase, which the editor used in his article)...either, "a medical procedure that opponents call 'partial-birth abortion'" or "a medical procedure known as intact dilation and evacuation that opponents call 'partial-birth abortion'"...in order to avoid saying, "partial-birth abortion," which apparently ruffles feathers. It's like people disliking the word "pro-abortion." One of my first limericks on OEDILF created such a stir that I was forced to leave the site for awhile. Why? In my limerick on abortion, lines 3 and 4 read: The liberals are for it/While others abhor it. My, my...I came back from a business trip to tons of comments, telling me that in no way do liberals want all women to have an abortion! What? That's what pro-abortion really means to them? The discussion about partial-birth abortion reminded me of that. And, for the record, I am a dyed in the wool liberal and absolutely am pro-abortion (and I favor partial-birth abortion if it's the safest medical procedure for the mother)...though I am supposed to call it pro-choice, and not pro-abortion now.

I have heard Pentateuch for the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament, have heard the Hebrew bible called the Torah when I attend services at my cousins' temples.

It never occurred to me before that "Old Testament" might be seen as offensive to some Jews, but I can understand it. It can be inferred from the label that there is a New Testament and that this older one is somehow obsolete. Most Christians I know see the Old Testament as the basis for and the origin of everything we believe. The Second Testament builds on it. I am totally ignorant of what Muslims call their scripture, and their religion is also an offshoot of Judaism. Probably ought to look that up.

Wordmatic

The bumper sticker that says,
"Against abortion? Then don't have one" is the definitive pro-choice statement. One may be in favor of a woman's right to choose, but not herself choose to have one. I've only known one woman who had an abortion without feeling anguish over her decision. I've known several others who've felt it was a tough call, but one they were glad they were granted the right to make.

The term, "partial birth abortion" was concocted by the anti-choice extremists to make it sound as if it were outright murder.

Kalleh, you knew my late friend, Dr Fulsher. As an OB-GYN, he was sued only twice in his long career. Once was for performing a late-term abortion in order to keep the mother from dying. Do the ever-so-righteous ever consider the tough decisions physicians sometimes have to make over this issue? There are few McDuffs in this world (From my mother's womb most untimely ripped). Most of the time, when a mother dies while pregnant, the fetus dies. Funny how that works!

Yes, that terminology "partial-birth abortion" is unfortunate, but did you see the alternatives that the media is using? They are ludicrous!

There must be a medical term for it, but I don't know it. That's probably what we should use.

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Do the ever-so-righteous ever consider the tough decisions physicians sometimes have to make over this issue?

It's so refreshing to hear someone state the apparently-not-so-obvious. I will never forget my mother's brief, never-repeated story of such an event survived by her grandmother-- there was no 'term' like partial-birth abortion, so she just stated the facts, as I recall in illustration of the modern wonders of ultrasound, etc. which can head off such horrors with a planned caesarian. I am nonplussed that wrong-headed factotums have somehow sold this heartbreak to the public as a "choice" made by a foolish woman or her evil doctor.

As one who is in health care, I just think these sorts of decisions must be left to the physicians. We can't let legislators and judges practice medicine, which is what they've begun to do. It isn't just on abortion issues. Now the Illinois legislature is getting involved in the control of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). MRSA is a terrible infection that is made worse by doctors who prescribe antibiotics in a willy-nilly fashion...but let the researchers and professionals control the infections. Likewise, let the ethical decisions be made by the hospitals' ethical committees, which are highly qualified, instead of leaving them to the courts, which are uninformed at best (and political at worst).

The government's involvement in medicine is ludicrous. Unfortunately, I don't see an end in sight.

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The government's involvement in medicine is ludicrous. Unfortunately, I don't see an end in sight.

Most Governments' involvement in anything at all is ludicrous. Most politicians are interested only in their own careers and one way in which they further these is by appealing to popular opinion.

MRSA a problem? The Government will do something about it. Obesity a challenge? The good old Government will sort it all out for us. Gun crime becoming epidemic? Don't worry, your caring Government will make sure you're all protected (just so long as we don't upset the gun lobby, of course).

It's a good job the Government hasn't yet managed to control cynicism!

Our Government has a three stage approach to Governing.

1. Look for some aspect of society that is a problem.

2. Commission a report to show everyone else that there is a problem.

3. Forget about solving the problem, find a way to make money from it.


Traffic in town centres a problem? Don't do anything about public transport, slap on a congestion charge.

Drunken misbehaviour at night a problem? Get the police to impose on the spot fines and give them the power to take you to an ATM to get the money.

Speeding a problem? Build a load of speed cameras and issues thousands of fines by post.

School underachievment a problem? Fine the schools.

MRSA a problem? Fine the hospitals.

Large number of people in the country who can't speak English? Charge them for lessons, charge them again to take a citizenship test (that most born in the UK citizens - including me - would struggle to pass), charge them repeatedly if they fail until they pass.

Environment a problem? Make people sort out their rubbish into five separate bins and charge them if they put something in the wrong bin.

Post offices not making enough profit? DOn't look at why they don't make a profit. Close down the least profitable ones and force people in rural areas to make round trip journeys of several hours to post a letter.

Global warming a problem? Slap an airport tax onto air journeys and intrroduce a whole range of so-called green taxes (the money for which won't be spent on envirnmental issues - they are just intended as punitive charges.)

I could go on.


Money, money, money. It's a rich man's world.

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Money, money, money. It's a rich man's world.

And they don't come much richer than politicians. Don't just look at their substantial salaries and inflation-proofed pensions - look at all the Directors' fees for having their name on some company's letter heading; the multi-thousand pound speaking engagements; the "consultancy fees" for telling companies what any one of their employees could have told them had they been asked.

Just don't get me going!

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Apparently some Jews (not me) take offense because we don't have a "New Testament."

I wonder how many such Jews really exist. Why should they worry what the people of another faith call it? I would be prepared to bet that the majority who feel this way are not in fact Jews but the same sticklers for PC thought that insist on people being referred to as "differently abled" and so on.

As the late newsman Eric Severeid said, "Most problems began as solutions."

Bob, your list was hilarious.

Arnie, this was a column by the public editor of the newspaper, and he was responding to this comment: "Some, maybe many, Jews take offense at use of the term 'Old Testament,' " complained reader Dick Nugent. "We don't have a new testament, so our book is not an old testament."

I think you may be right, though, Arnie. I haven't met many Jews who are irritated by that, but I will ask my always-irritated daughter who does have a better pulse on the more orthodox Jews than I do.

Somehow this discussion reminds me of those tourists who visit "Old Mexico."

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Bob, your list was hilarious.

Hilarious depends on where you're standing. As one of the citizens on the receiving end of all those measures it doesn't look so funny. Every one of those is a measure taken by our current Government.

Another one that was due to be in force now but which has been delayed is HIPs.

HIPs are Home Information Packs. These were to have been a pack provided - and paid for - by the seller of a house. In principle I agree that it's better that the seller has it done rather than the buyer as then it only needs to be done once for a house rather than once per potential buyer. In practice for all sorts of reasons it was never going to work (not least of which would be that buyers would be encouraged to have there own survey done as well) and looked for all the world like another Government money spinner. All done in the name of the environment as packs would rate your home on its "energy efficiency" thus forcing people in the lowest rating to have costly "improveements" done before they could find anyone prepared to buy.

We still have identity cards to come. Rather like the war in Iraq the justification for these changes with which way the wind is blowing. They were originally pitched as protection against terrorism (every terrorist involved in every known plot, successful or otherwise, in the UK, has been a British citizen and would have had one anyway.) Then they were pitched as protection against crime. (Though it's hard to see how carrying a bit of plastic will protect anyone against crime.) Then they were pitched as protection against identity theft. (Every expert agrees they will make identity theft easier not harder.) I forget the other reasons but there have been several.

Whichever way they are pitched, what they will definitely mean is (according to whos estimate you use) anything up to £300 per citizen being paid to the Government.

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Bob, your list was hilarious

It would be if it weren't all true.

Mmmm ... I still wonder how many Dick Nugents there are.

However, I do agree that "Old" could be seen by some as meaning the Book was outdated. The New Testament is not seen by Christians as replacing the Old Testament, but building upon it. Perhaps "First" and "Second" might be better labels? That might, at least, have the effect of mollifying the Dick Nugents, as "First" has the has the implication of "main". However, perhaps the Christians would then start objecting, saying that their Testament was being given secondary status. And there are more of them ...

Oh, and when I mentioned the five separte bins I forgot a bit. (This is great, and sadly also true. It's being piloted in some areas now.)

The bin for general waste (ie all the bits left over when the other bits are sorted out.) is to have a microchip to prevent people overfilling it with the wrong kind of rubbish. This is combined with a measure (already in force in most places) where bins are now emptied once every two (or even three in some areas) weeks rather than every week. This latter is, so we're told, to encourage people to recycle more so that they don't fill the bins. It has nothing whatsover to do with cost cutting by halving the number of collections.

Just on the other topic of the thread for a moment. How do Mormons view the Old and New testament labels. I'm no expert but for them isn't the Book of Mormon kind of like "The Bible Part II"?

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Whichever way they are pitched, what they will definitely mean is (according to whos estimate you use) anything up to £300 per citizen being paid to the Government.

This is my only objection to identity cards. There is no reason at all why ID cards should cost anything like £300; the present UK passport (a far more complex and substantial item) costs less than £100 and I see no reason why an ID card should cost any more than a driving licence - say around £15-20.

Although most people don't now realise it, ID cards are not a new idea. All those who were alive in WW2 had to have an ID card (I still have mine) and I can't recall that anyone worried. Frankly I can see no reason whatsoever for not having ID cards. They offer a quick and easy way of proving your identity and eligibility for all sorts of things and could replace the plethora of different documents that currently exist. I presently have to carry a driving licence; two different kinds of OAP's card; a European Health Insurance card and a plethora of different membership cards. It would be quite possible for many of these cards to be combined into one, such is the power of the micro-chip, and a card-reader would immediately confirm the eligibility, or lack thereof, of the holder to the service requested.

Many countries already have ID cards and nobody has yet come up with a reason that satisfies me that they are a bad thing for us in the UK.

I have a number of objections.

Obviously the cost is one.

The second is that these are most emphatically NOT the type of ID cards you recall. These are a system that will, if implemented as planned, carry all your biometric details, possibly your financial details, your criminal record details, your personal deatails all of which will be part of a national database. This is being done in the name of security when it will in fact clamp down on ordinary citizens while criminals and terrorists invent a new industry circumventing it.

The cost is not for the production of the cards but for the billions it will take to implement the computer system. Remember in the UK NO Government sponsored computer system has EVER come in on time or budget. Look at the fiascos of the London Ambulance sytem, the Working Tax Credit system or the CSA for prime examples.

No system of that size or complexity is likely to work. Take it from someone with lots of experience of implementing huge complex systems.



The next objection is to the rationale - that we need them to be safe and secure. That's just bullshit. There is no such thing as a system the criminals can't beat and putting all your details on one card gives a false sense of security that will be exploited by the criminals before they have even issued the cards. Eggs in one basket, anyone?

My next objection is that I do not trust the Government. I know that might sound like paranoia, especially when I say that it applies equally to this Labour Government and any future Conservative one. The oft repeated argument that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear is another piece of spin. Once the Government has all that information what will they do with it? Nothing, they say. I don't believe them. Keep in mind that only this week there has been discussion of giving the authorities the right to stop and detain anyone without any kind of just cause. This is an extension of the old "sus" laws (stop and search on suspicion) that is completely at odds with any notion of democracy.

An ID card with my name and address and photo? No objection. An ID card with all these details ? More objections than I can enumerate.

Every day we get closer and closer to the world envisioned in 1984. We are being led with our eyes wide open into a police state.

Not that I feel strongly about this issue or anything!

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An ID card with my name and address and photo? No objection. An ID card with all these details ? More objections than I can enumerate.

The reality is that the Government already has these details - or has easy access to them. Putting them onto a card makes little difference so far as I can see.

Hmmm...Bob, you've definitely convinced me that ID cards aren't a good thing!

Interestingly, there was a follow-up column on this subject by the same public editor. Apparently he heard from a lot of readers! One teaches her students that the Hebrew Bible is the essential source of law and teaching for the Jews. The Christian Bible, she says, is made up of two testatments; the Old Testament is the Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, while the New Testament is the work of Christian revelation. They are consecutive, comprehensive and must be understood as a coherent whole for Christian theology.

There were others who brought out many other pet peeves, but an interesting one was the guy who complained about the use of the present participle 'lingering' to qualify a noun, 'war.' He says, while he understands the meaning, the descriptive word should be 'protracted'. He then paraphrases Mark Twain who said he knows what the reader wanted to say, but he also knows he's not saying it. I have to say, I'd not think twice about saying "lingering war."

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Every day we get closer and closer to the world envisioned in 1984. We are being led with our eyes wide open into a police state.

Speaking of the Bible - the New Testament, or more specifically the Revelations to John (the final book of the Christian Bible) - talks about the Mark of the Beast. Some modern theologians (and also the writers Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, who wrote the Left Behind series) speculate that the mark of the beast will actually be something like an implanted computer chip that will carry all of those details and allow the "system" to not only have free and open access to all of it but also manipulate it, and do things like deny you access to your own assets at will.

Currently, it is possible to have a computer chip implanted in your pet, just under the skin, that can be accessed if your pet gets lost so they can locate you.

*******************
On the other topic, when I speak of the Jewish Holy Books, I generally refer to them as such. When I speak of the Old Testament, the first 2/3 of my Bible, I call it what it is for me - the Old Testament - the Old Covenant, etc. We call things what will have meaning and significance to the listener. Some people need to just calm down and stop trying to find reasons to be angry at one another.

While I agree with Richard that the British government (and probably the U.S. government as well) already has all of those details, I agree with Bob that it is a bad idea to put them all in one place. Identity theft would be just a matter of one-stop shopping at that point, and an identity card would prevent neither crime nor terrorism.

The concept of the implanted chip as the mark of the beast is both interesting and terrifying. Hopefully none of us will live long enough to see such a thing, mark of the beast or not. Of course, we have had this sort of branding of humans already, in the form of serial numbers tattooed on the arms of concentration camp abductees during the holocaust. I fear there are many marks of the beast about!

Wordmatic

When I read in the newspaper about the authorities' taking fingerprints of elementary children at schools "to facilitate their identification in case of emergency" I wonder how that process is supposed to work.

What kind of emergency would prevent the children from answering questions like "What's your name and where do you live?"

Sorry to say, I believe they're talking about finding the remains of a child. Fear-mongering, IMHO. Scare everybody in the country half to death so as to facilitate policing a handful of cases.

A little terminology, please. What Christians call the Old Testament, is called the Tanakh in Hebrew. This is an acronym that stands for the Torah (called the Pentateuch, or first five books of Moses), the Nevi'im (or Prophets), and the Ketuvim (or writings or Hagiographia). The Aramaic translation was called the Targum (which is Aramaic for 'translation'). Some extra books got stuck in by the different brands of Christians. The Septuagint (or LXX) was a translation done under orders from Rabbi Akiva of the Hebrew text into Greek, which many Hellenized Jews adopted. The set of books known as the New Testament to Christians were a bunch of writings in Koine (or Common) Greek. The canonicity for books in the Bible (as the OT and NT came to be known) was set at various Councils of the Church (from Nicea onwards). This was a political necessity when Christianity became the official Roman religion. One tale you hear often is that the Catholic church did not allow the Bible to be translated into vernaculars, but there are many translations in Old French, Old English, Old High German, etc., that predate the Reformation.

Jerry: the authorities taking fingerprints of elementary children at schools "to facilitate their identification in case of emergency" ... What kind of emergency would prevent the children from answering questions like "What's your name and where do you live?"
beth: Sorry to say, I believe they're talking about finding the remains of a child.

I'm sure that that's the reason given, beth, but I doubt it's the real reason. If that were the goal the police could, as a routine procedure in every missing child case, forward the kid's dental records to a central agency. That's easier: the records already exist, and you need only centralize the identification data on missing children, rather than on all children. And your coverage would be 100% of such children, rather than (with fingerprint-identification-of-remains) only those kids who'd participated in the fingerprinting program.

So why have such a program? It strikes me that the true motive is to keep the prints after the kids have become adults, and thus have (potentially) all prints on file. To me, that's a chilling prospect.

At my son's school, they have a company that comes in every year to make IDs for the kids that have fingerprints and photos. The IDs are for the guardians to keep in case the child becomes lost or is kidnapped. The fingerprints are kept by the guardian, and they would be used to help find the child, too . . . as well as the picture.

I hate to contemplate Hic's theory, but even if it's not the original intention, I don't like the idea of all that info out there, just ready to be subverted to some scheme... I suspect the companies visiting the schools annually are simply making hay while the sun shines. But there's no telling what kind of gray or black market might be beckoning to them.

Well, too often my glass is half full, but I cannot imagine the real reason for getting kids' fingerprints is for identifying them as criminals when they're adults. I think CW is right on this one.

Over here there has been talk (press reports of alleged Government suggestions actually) of keeping a database of information regarding children born to families that might be likely to cause them to grow up as criminals. This database information to be started pre-natally.


Never underestimate the ways in which a Government will try to control its citizens.

At the moment, in the name of security, our Government is trying to increase the number of days you can be held without charge from 28 to 90.