YOUR AD HERE »

Beaton: ‘Manpower’ doesn’t mean ‘man power’

Glenn K. Beaton
The Aspen Beat

Free speech is no longer free at our universities. If you say the wrong thing, your words will cost you.

Even if you say the right thing it’ll cost you plenty. At Princeton University, you pay tuition of $41,820 per year (well, this being academia, make that per two-thirds of a year) for the language police to ban you from words they deem sexist.

The ban applies to so-called hateful words and phrases like “layman,” “mankind” (which the censors deem not just politically incorrect but also oxymoronic), “man hours,” “workmanlike” and of course that most-hated word, “manpower.”



In addition, they’ve banned gender-specific pronouns. So you can’t say, for example, “Each person pays his tuition through the nose.” Do it, but don’t say it.

You can substitute “their” for “his.” So you can say, “Each person pays their tuition through the nose.” Grammatically speaking, this use of the plural pronoun “their” to reference one person is incorrect unless the person has a mouse in his/her/their pocket and the mouse is carrying its own $41,820, which it intends to pay through its own little nose. But let’s not let grammar, money or vermin stand in the way of social justice.




Where will this end? How far should we carry the emasculation of language for the emancipation of women?

In answering that question, consider that sanctimonious censorship is an easy way to show our politically correct cred, with no real price to pay other than mutilation of the language of Shakespeare and other white Anglos, the lives of whom we can’t say matter.

And consider that language has been modified to fit the times throughout the course of history (and herstory and theirstory). These times being silly and incomprehensible, it’s natural that the language should be, too.

So I say we should carry our sanctimony pretty far. This far:

“Manipulate” shall be replaced with “personipulate.”

“Manhandle” is now “personhandle.”

“Manhole” is now “personhole.”

“Manage” is henceforth “humanage.”

Oops, that won’t work, because “human” contains the syllable “man.” “Human” must become “huperson” and so “manage” becomes “hupersonage.”

But come to think of it, “person” doesn’t work either, because the second syllable in “person” is gender-specific in referring to male offspring.

So from now on, the word “person” must be replaced with “perdaughter” and so “manage” becomes “huperdaughterage.” And “personipulate,” which replaced “manipulate,” must, in turn, be replaced with “perdaughteripulate.”

“Wait,” you say, “the word ‘daughter’ is sexist too, because it refers to a female offspring.”

Wrong, knuckle dragger. As everyone not suffering from testosterone poisoning knows, it is not possible for females to be sexist or for female-specific words to be sexist because females are the oppressed gender. Get some treatment, OK, dude?

I wonder if this is how German words got so big. Er, I mean Gerwoman words. Oops, that won’t work either, because “woman” also contains the syllable “man,” just as “human” does.” And you can’t use “woperson,” because, as explained above, a “son” is a male. So “woman” needs to be replaced with “woperdaughter.” “German” becomes “Gerwoperdaughter,” which does sound vaguely German if you shout it.

There, I feel more sanctimonious already. I hope the local woperdaughters will be impressed by me, because they’re no longer oppressed by me, because now they get to wear the pants around me, and so this will help me get in them.

Postscript

I’m trying to be funny, but the leftists at Princeton (or is it “Princessville” now?) are not. As Saul Alinsky recognized in his book, “Rules for Radicals,” “He who controls the language controls the masses.”

Academic leftists view their students as the masses, and seek to intimidate and coerce them by controlling their language. This is exactly the opposite of the intended purpose of a university and exactly the opposite of the ostensible philosophy of American liberals.

Years ago, they banned free speech. Now they’re banning words. What next? Will they ban the letter “Y” because that’s the name of the chromosome uniquely in men?

Today, they emasculate the language. Tomorrow, they emasculate you.

I have a message for them. If you expect to take my man power, you’d better show up with some of your own.

Correspond at theAspenbeat@gmail.com.