US campaign against the "r-word"

[cyberianpan]

There's a large US campaign against the r-word, it has a pledge website:
R-word.org - Change the conversation...



Sarah Palin is behind it:
Palin's campaign against the "R-word" hits snag with Limbaugh - Yahoo! News

Rush Limbaugh won't stand for the political correctness:
CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Limbaugh takes heat for using ‘R’ word - Blogs from CNN.com

Obama's chief of staff got caught saying it, so a high powered delegation went to the White House to make him apologize
Rahm Takes Pledge Not to Use R-Word - Political Punch

The GOP has taken hits also:
FOXNews.com - Perry Campaign Apologizes for Using 'R' Word

What do people think of this campaign - and the general notion of political campaigns to cleanse the language ?

cYp

[Pauli]

I suppose in the US, banning the word "Republican" is a start.

[toxic avenger]

Have people stopped saying 'flid' yet? When I was a kid at school, everyone called everyone a 'flid'. If they weren't calling them a 'gaylord'.

[CookieMonster]

Never heard of "flid" before.

[Bobert]

I presume this is a reaction to Emmanuel's use of "retard" which is a wholly accepted phrase in the US since the last time I checked. Anyway; to campaign against a word is ridiculous. Campaign against the stigma, sure! But leave the word alone!

[toxic avenger]

Never heard of "flid" before.

Ah, it's going back 25 to 30 years since I heard it last - a reference to Thalidomide. I imagine it wasn't sensitivity that led to it stopping, rather that the issue went away off the media radar and it became archaic.

[TommyO'Brien]

I bet it will be great craic then trying to order certain medicines which use the word 'retard' to indicate that they are the slow-release version of medicine. For example, epileptics often take tablets called Tegretol. The slow-release version, in which the effects are released slowly over hours rather than in the normal version all at once into the bloodstream, are called 'Tegretol Retard'. I can just imagine people asking their doctor "I need a perscription for my epilepsy drugs. Not the normal white tegretol version, but the other sort, the em . . . other sort, the [whispers] [SIZE=1]retard [/SIZE]ones." They could of course refer to them by their colours. The normal one is white. The retard version is . . . um . . . coloured. Oops. I guess that wouldn't be PC to use either.

[CookieMonster]

I bet it will be great craic then trying to order certain medicines which use the word 'retard' to indicate that they are the slow-release version of medicine. For example, epileptics often take tablets called Tegretol. The slow-release version, in which the effects are released slowly over hours rather than in the normal version all at once into the bloodstream, are called 'Tegretol Retard'. I can just imagine people asking their doctor "I need a perscription for my epilepsy drugs. Not the normal white tegretol version, but the other sort, the em . . . other sort, the [whispers] [SIZE=1]retard [/SIZE]ones."

yeah... imagine.

[Mercurial]

I have a little mental wince every time I hear it being bandied about by Americans. I don't really see the harm in campaigning like this if it's done in a consciousness-raising kind of way...But then again it is being spear-headed by Palin so...

[CookieMonster]

I have a little mental wince every time I hear it being bandied about by Americans. I don't really see the harm in campaigning like this if it's done in a consciousness-raising kind of way...But then again it is being spear-headed by Palin so...

Sarah Palin's son, Trig, has Down Syndrome, so...