The Patriot Post® · Stanford Dumbs Up the Language

If ignorance is indeed bliss, then the vast majority of the American people should be downright giddy about their language.

Just don’t tell the politically correct do-gooding scolds at Stanford University. They want to ban, for example, the use of the term “peanut gallery,” because it “refers to the cheapest and worst section in theaters where many Black people sat during the Vaudeville era.”

Show of hands: Did you know that? We sure didn’t. And we can’t imagine too many of our black friends knew it, either.

Similarly, did you know that the term “cakewalk” is offensive? We thought it was a perfectly appropriate term to describe a mismatched athletic contest like, say, Michigan against Ohio State in football. Who knew that “enslaved people covertly used exaggerated dance to mock their enslavers” and that “this turned into ‘balls’ that the White enslavers would hold for entertainment where the prize was a cake”?

And that’s just for starters. They want to remove more than 300 other similarly offensive words from our everyday lexicon. As Fox News reports:

Stanford University published an index of “harmful language” it plans to eliminate from the school’s websites and computer code, offering terms to be used as replacements. The Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, which was revealed in May, is a “multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford,” according to the guide.

See it for yourself. But be careful to heed Stanford’s content warning: “This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own pace.”

Retard? Okay, we get it. That term from our elementary school days is offensive. But Stanford wants us to instead say “person with a cognitive disability” or “person with autism” or “neurodivergent person.”

That’s quite a mouthful and quite an inefficient expansion of syllables. But inflation is a thing these days. And just imagine the head-snapping double takes that you’ll elicit from your friends when you refer to Joe Biden as our neurodivergent commander-in-chief.

Speaking of mouthfuls, we long ago figured out that “Indian giver” was probably offensive to Atlanta Braves fans and Kansas City Chiefs fans and Washington Redskins fans, but check out the linguistic speed bump that Stanford recommends instead: “person who takes something back that was given” or “one who expects an equivalent gift in return for one that was given.”

The editors of the Wall Street Journal editorial page were similarly impressed:

Call yourself an “American”? Please don’t. Better to say “U.S. citizen,” per the bias hunters, lest you slight the rest of the Americas. “Immigrant” is also out, with “person who has immigrated” as the approved alternative. It’s the iron law of academic writing: Why use one word when four will do?

Don’t say “spaz” either, by the way. That’s “ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with disabilities.” And don’t say “crazy,” because that’s “ableist language that trivializes the experiences of people living with mental health conditions.”

We know what you’re thinking: If we can’t use “crazy,” how are we going to describe Joe Biden’s policies or the, ahem, 81 million people who elected him? Never fear; Stanford has you covered. Instead, use “surprising” or “wild.” Thus: “It’s hard to believe that 81 million of our fellow Americans were surprising enough to vote for this guy.”

Works perfectly, no?

Elsewhere within the guide, under the “Institutionalized Racism” heading, the Stanford scolds all but blacklist the word “black.” Black hat, black mark, black sheep, blackball, black box — all of these are now verboten. (Interestingly, and thankfully, “African-American” has apparently fallen out of favor, too, and we should now consider reverting back to “black” or the capitalized “Black” to describe those voters whom Joe Biden most takes for granted. As the guide puts it: “Black people who were born in the United States can interpret hyphenating their identity as "othering.” As with many of the terms we’re highlighting, some people do prefer to use/be addressed by this term, so it’s best to ask a person which term they prefer to have used when addressing them.“)

Don’t use the term "guru,” by the way, because “in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, the word is a sign of respect.” Thus, when mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers like you use the term, “it casually negates its original value.”

And don’t tell your youngest kid that he needs to take the trash out because he’s “low man on the totem pole.” Why not? Because it “trivializes something that is sacred to Indigenous peoples. Also, in some First Nation communities, being low on the totem pole is actually a higher honor than being on top. The term also reinforces male-dominated language.”

Got it? Good. Now take out the damned trash.

At the core of what these academic ninnies are trying to do is, we suppose, something kind, something sympathetic. Instead, however, they succeed only in delivering an elitist and often obscure lecture about what we’re allowed to say in an ostensibly free country. At a time when we have the federal government colluding with Big Tech to suppress our speech, it seems like a rather tone-deaf, er, unenlightened initiative.

And while it’s one thing to try to create an environment of respect, it’s quite another thing entirely to go bat-crap crazy, er, bat-crap surprising with it.