Latest hate crime: Using the English language correctly

Latest hate crime: Using the English language correctly by Kevin Whiteman

Editorial: Latest hate crime: Using the English language correctly

"...Now that got me thinking, which hurt like hell … why am I quite often corrected AND admonished for using the English language correctly? I was “corrected” once by an oh-so-PC airhead because I referred to Orientals as … wait for it … Orientals. As this vacuous bird-brain sneered down her leathery-tanned nose as me, “Kevin, rugs are Oriental, my friend Kim is an Asian.” To wit, I retorted, “Do you even know what ‘Oriental’ means?”

Stunned silence. But I went on despite the irritating sound of the wind whistling through her head, “‘Oriental’ means ‘of the east.’ Just like ‘Occidental’ means ‘of the west.’ Kinda like Occidental College up in LA. You know, it’s on the West Coast, right? So if your friend Kim so desires to refer to my Dad’s European ancestors as ‘Occidentals,’ I could care less. Just don’t correct me for using the English language correctly.”

As time when by and by Western civilization furthered the process of slow suicide, now I’m told if I call the male of the species from China a Chinaman, I’m an evil person. Wait, is an Irishman no longer an Irishman? Scotsmen are no longer Scots nor men? But in all fairness, I can see the conundrum associated with the linguistic oxymoron that is Frenchman.

.......Yet the most idiotic knee-jerk reaction has been in regards to the word “niggardly.” My apologies to the perpetually outraged, but niggardly has absolutely no connection in any way, shape or form to either the color black or anything concerning the black race. The word is not rooted in the Latin word for black (the nominative neutral): Nigrum.

Niggardly actually comes to us from the Norsepersons-of-undetermined-gender, aka: (“The Vikings.”) Definition: “Niggardly” (noun: “niggard”) is an adjective meaning “stingy” or “miserly”, perhaps related to the Old Norse verb nigla = “to fuss about small matters”.[1] It is cognate with “niggling”, meaning “petty” or “unimportant”, as in “the niggling details.”

So with all that said, should I raise hell if someone ever utters within earshot of me “That’s not germane to the conversation”? Maybe someone just insulted my Bavarian heritage. I also demand that Tales of the South Pacific, Once Were Warriors, and Mutiny on the Bounty should all be taken out of all libraries and burned. I feeeeel they insult my Islander lineage.

Now doesn’t that sound silly?