A friend was on BBC Leicester briefly on Thursday (25 minutes in). You can tell how well it went if I tell you she was described as a ‘full-on feminist’.
The story is laughable. To help translation the EU is going to try and use non-gender specific language where possible. So they’ll be talking about police officers or firefighters instead of policemen or firemen. You might think that makes sense if you’re translating stuff into languages which already have grammatical genders where gendered content might cause confusion. This has caused Tory MEPs Roger Helmers and Chris Heaton-Harris to throw their toys out of the pram. It’s political correctness gone mad. Umm… why? Do they really need to know if they can have homosexual relationships with police officers? Are they seriously going to argue that arrest warrants should only be granted between member states if there’s a sufficient number of breasts in the area? I can see there are times when gender would matter. For instance in the case of rape, it’s reasonable to specify that the victim should have the option to give her statement to a policewoman. Still, most of the time the gender is, or else should be, irrelevant. I can’t see what you lose by dropping men in favour of something gender-neutral. Then again, if I were a more insecure man I might think differently.
Perhaps the two iambs in artificial compared to the spondee of man-made is going to wreck the poetry that is the hallmark of an EU directive.
Sadly, it looks like the Conservatives are pinning their hopes on ripping off Douglas Adams for the forthcoming European elections. They’re hoping the superficial flaws in their arguments will hide the fundamental flaws in their arguments. You’d think the June 2009 elections would be an open-goal. OLAF, the EU’s anti-corruption office is a farce spending its time investigating those who highlight corruption. It’s possible that overseeing the EU might be a bit too much like hard work. Instead it’s easier to pretend words like ‘Mister’, ‘Miss’ and ‘Gullible’ are being made illegal. To be fair to Helmers and Heaton-Harris, BBC Leicester swallowed the last one completely. They cheerfully primed the public to speak there branes on the subject.
Most ironically, it shows the Euro-tories have gone native. They’re either ignorant of English culture or, worse, anti-English. How so? Well, it comes down to this man-made versus artificial debate. It’s time to appeal to the ultimate authority on the English language, Shakespeare – who invented a lot of it. What words would Shakespeare use if he were writing an EU directive?
He might use the word artificial. Gloucester in Henry VI part III talks of his cheek wet by artificial tears. It also appears in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet amongst others. In contrast he never used the ugly ‘man-made’. Yet Helmers and Heaton-Harris would have the EU cast out the language of Shakespeare rather than corrupt officials. The bard had the best end for them.
Exit, pursued by a bear.The Winter’s Tale. Act 3, Scene 3, Line 58
If you want to know why even UK based Conservatives are happier with political correctness, here’s a video from Stewart Lee.
