Word Gone Wrong

As children our parents tried to teach us right from wrong. We are to be honest, respect our elders, love others, know you can do anything, stand up for yourself and be considerate of others feelings. We live in a world now that, in my opinion, struggles with what we were taught of being considerate of others feelings. I am sure you have heard the term “politically correct” and this is where the conflict of what we were taught battles our modern world. I believe that our society has become so infected with making sure we are being politically correct that in some cases it borders on absurdity. Free speech is a freedom we enjoy in this country and something that is defended on a daily basis. We have to understand that while exercising this

These are words that are intentionally used to cause harm such as calling an individual retarded. Lawrence Downes in “A Word Gone Wrong” stated “Young people especially like it: as a weapon of derision, it does its job. Its sharp, with an assaultive potency that words like “moron” and “idiot” lost sometime in the days of black-and-white TV.” It is this distinction that I believe is causing the conflict in this country. The word is used to intentionally causes pain to the individual it was directed too. But I submit that we have used this above example to try every way possible to make many words fit this same

I have always called my fellow firefighters fireman whether they be male or female firefighters. No disrespect was intended when I used the term It is a great honor to become part of the fire service based on the amount of training and sacrifice to go from being a rookie to being called a firefighter. Any female or male who can do the job is welcomed into the fire service. But our society says that using this statement makes a gender distinction. We as firefighters consider ourselves a “brotherhood”. But am I once again being politically incorrect in using this term also? The use of “brotherhood” is to show that we have each other’s back in any situation, we are all a family and I will not leave their side during any incident. By trying to be politically correct would mean I take this word and see “brother” which translate to male, which translates to excluding females, in turn making it a gender distinction and politically