This is rather fleeing the stable door after the horse has bolted – the European Parliament has decided that the Eve of Brexit, that most glorious moment in our recent history, is the time to start censoring the English language. You know, that language that they’re all threatening to stop using because we’ve decided to take our ball and money back and go home? The specific thing they’re complaining about being something that doesn’t even happen in those other lesser tongues that they tend to babble, the use of “man” to indicate peeps.
But this is what they’re saying in whatever pidgin or creole it is they like to use at home:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Politically correct European Parliament urges end to words like ‘man-made’, ‘mankind’ and ‘layman'[/perfectpullquote]Layman actually has a real reason for existing, it coming from one who is not a priest. As women were not able to be so – Dr Johnson having it right here about dogs on hind legs – then man is the correct appellation. But to stop with the pendantry:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The European Parliament is attempting to stamp out the use of words such as “mankind” and “manpower” and have them replaced with more gender neutral terms such as “humanity” and “staff”. Officials and MEPs in the parliament, which has seats in Brussels and Strasbourg, have been sent a guidebook on using gender-neutral language in communications, EU legislation and interpretation. It calls on them to avoid the “generic use of man”. “Gender-neutral or gender-inclusive language is more than a matter of political correctness,” the guidebook reads, “Language powerfully reflects and influences attitudes, behaviour and perceptions.” [/perfectpullquote]As it happens for a language to be an official one a country has to declare that it is the official language of that country. And everyone only gets to pick one. Eire, for obvious political reasons, has chosen Erse – Irish Gaelic – and upon our exit there is no one who will still have English as the declared official language. Thus English stops being an official EU language despite it being the only one which people have in common.
Thus official advice of how the EU institutions should use English is more than a little redundant.
But, this being the EU, of course it’s worse than that. For all the other varied degenerations of the ancestral Germanic, all the impenetrable argots of debased Latin, they have entirely different rules about gender and words. They make many more distinctions than our loved and lovely tongue. The advice is somewhere, for all those forms of jabbering incomprehensibly, between irrelevant and ludicrous.
And yet the European Parliament decides to spend what is still your and my money on such advice. Thank The Lord we’re leaving come March 29, eh?
I have never heard a good reason for leaving the EU. Like most people, I want our country to remain a member.
The only problem there is the “most”. For we did in fact organise a process to go and ask what people did think. All adult citizens were asked to make the views clear. We called each view registered a “vote” and the process as a whole a “referendum”. The outcome of which was that a majority of those who expressed their view said “Leave”.
So, that’s what we’re doing. It’s called “democracy” this system.
All that is perfectly true. I remember the result you are referring to, which was a long, long time ago, and is long past its sell-by date. That result was only advisory, of course . Since then millions of those voters have died. The June 2016 result does not reflect what the electorate of December 2018 thinks. We need a national debate on our relationship with the European Union, followed by a referendum. It’s called “democracy” this system.
When was the one before? 1975 or so? A few decades before we all do it again then, no?
And, by the same ‘logic’, the December 2018 result wouldn’t reflect what electors in January 2019 think. Therefore we should hold a referendum every other week (just until we achieve a result that you consider to be the ‘correct’ one, of course),
And in the intervening 2 years time, broadly the same number of people have aged and matured to the point where they understand the reasons for leaving and will have changed their minds from Remain to Leave. The dead Leave voters have been cancelled out by the increased maturity/wisdom of ex-Remain voters.
If that’s your best argument for another referendum no wonder Project Fear was such a failure.
In 2014 we had an election for MEPs – only 24% cared to have one ( I’m assuming UKIP voters didn’t want MEPs at all but voted under protest ) In 2015 we elected a government that said in their manifesto they would deliver a referendum on EU membership, albeit there was a clause about making us stronger in the single market in there. In 2016 we voted to leave EU membership, and later that year the Supreme Court said this was up to Parliament In 2017 Parliament voted to leave EU membership, and we had a General Election when… Read more »
HilaryChapman (:
Bill ,get over yourself. You lost. Nobody likes a bad loser. You can,t keep demanding a second or third vote until you get the right answer. That,s just puerile
“You can,t keep demanding a second or third vote until you get the right answer.”
..even though thats exactly what the EU did to get its Lisbon Accord over the line. EU? pffftt… hypocrites all…
Other than maintain the status quo (stay in a failing organisation – audits being signed off yet?) I’ve never heard a good reason for staying in the EU.
Thank the Lord???? Please. Thank the AristoPerson.
But it’s not “man”, it’s “-man”. Being Continentals, they clearly have no understanding of the English language. -man means “person”. The original English formulation was “wereman” meaning “male person” and “woman” meaning “female person”. Any word with -man suffix is already gender-neutral, it means person.
And for god’s sake, prefix man? That means ***HAND***. “manpower”, “manual”, “manufacturer” means “by use of hand”, not “person with penis”.