Political correctness aims to accomplish two main things: removing stigma and words with negative connotations around “undesirable” groups, and creating a “people first” mentality so that individuals can be viewed in a more positive, equal light. Here are some examples of politically incorrect writing, with corrections and explanations:
- The “people first” approach
One key aspect of political correctness is to form a sense of equality amongst peoples in a working society. Say, for example, someone had a disability. Calling that individual a “disabled person” isn’t grammatically wrong, but it shines a negative light on that person. By putting the word “disabled” before “person”, it highlights the individual’s disability, which they don’t have control over, over their humanity. Therefore, when calling someone a “disabled person”, the audience is more likely to focus on their disability, increasing chances of discrimination and negative stigma around the individual.
To remedy this, many have adopted the “people first” approach. With this, speakers and authors put the word “people” before any adjectives, this time highlighing person’s humanity over any preexisting conditions. Instead of saying “disabled person”, the correct phrase would be “person with a disability”.
Helena Halmari, an English professor at Sam Huston State University, did an analysis of “people first” language back in 2010. Below are further examples of “people first” language from her initial research:
2. Gender Neutrality
To further the image of equality, there has been a push to “degenderize” certain nouns and positions that imply only one gender can fulfill that role. The movement to “degenderize” nouns comes from both the professional and interpersonal setting.
In a professional context, removing gender based nouns comes from the notion that only one gender can become that profession. Until recent years, it was common to call someone who worked in the fire or police department a “firemen” or “policeman” respectively. One again, while those words are technically grammatically correct, there’s a heavy gender implication. Even when these two words were frequently used, both men and women participated in these fields. However, by using the words “firemen” and “policemen”, authors and speakers are not only deceiving the public, but also not giving female, and other types of genders, the credit they deserve.
To remedy this, political correctness simply removes the gendered part of the original noun and replaces it with a non-gender based version. For example, “firemen” turns into “firefighter” and “policeman” into “police officer”. This new, edited version is both grammatically and factually accurate, regardless of what gender the worker is. Other examples include “mailman” into “mail carrier” and “salesman/saleswomen” into “salesperson” or “sales associate”.
Degenderization is also present in personal settings. Typically, this happens when discussing romantic and/or sexual relations. For example, say a female coworker mentioned she was married. The politically correct follow-up would be “Who’s your partner/spouse?”, not “Who’s your husband?” The reason being is that the latter option implies the woman is supposed to be in love with a man, nothing else. It also implies that only two genders exist in the world, which in recent years has been seen as false.