A friend at work told me, his 6 year old niece isn't allowed to sing 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'
The PC thing is getting out of hand......
From the desk of the Rt. Hon. Humphrey Bumphrey MP
Minister of State for the Department of Political Correctness and Silly Walks
The House of Commons
Westminster
London
23 October 2007
My Dear Szarlotka,
Your letter of 19 October 2007 refers
It was good to hear from you again. Thank you for bringing to my attention the incident involving one of your colleagues at the recent planning session who, in referring to his heavy workload, used the unfortunate phrase “I feel like the boy with his finger in the dyke”. I can well understand the reaction of Ms. Blenkinsop of Accounts. Please pass on my best wishes to her for a speedy recovery.
Quite frankly this is another sad case of the unforgivable misuse of our colourful and historic language giving offence to Colleagues. It is from incidents such as this that the need has arisen for the rapid expansion of my Department to employ over 23,000 additional staff in the last six months alone.
In response to your guidance on the phrase in question, I would comment as follows: Firstly, references to boys are frowned upon as being sexist and we also need to consider the protection of young children in this instance. Therefore we would advise the use of ‘young person’ here. Secondly, we believe that finger would cause great offence to our American colleagues. Accordingly we advise the use of ‘digit’ in this instance. The use of the word ‘Dyke’ makes me shudder. It is high on the list of potential election losers in my view. I strongly advise the use of the term ‘flood protection barrier’.
In summary in future please ensure that the phrase ‘young person with their digit in the flood protection barrier’ is used in all formal communications. I recognise that this is a bit of a mouthful and for informal, internal communications you have my blessing to shorten this to “young person with their digit in the levee”.
Moving on to your request for guidance from my Department on other phrases that you suspect may be in need of review, I have set out below our responses:
Blackberry – please use Afro-Caribbean Berry. We have taken up your advice in this area and have written to the manufacturers of the ubiquitous hand held devices in question demanding that they change their branding in this way. Incidentally, blackcurrants are, of course, to be referred to as Afro-Caribbean currants, Red berries are to be called Socialist Berries and Green Gauges are to be called eco-friendly gauges.
For ‘chink in the armour’ we advise the use of ‘Oriental person in the armour’.
Going forwards a blunt response is to be referred to as ‘calling a shovel a shovel’.
The phrase ‘spick and span’ should be replaced with ‘neat and tidy’.
I hope that this guidance is useful to you and your Colleagues. You were quite right to bring these matters to the attention of my Department. After all it is our remit to eradicate all offensive references from our new society. I know that the transition to a more pleasant and correct world is not easy for Colleagues in other Departments. For example, in a meeting with members of the National Astronomy Laboratory only the other day it was my unpleasant duty to inform them that Black Holes (racial and sexual undertones I’m afraid) must be called ‘portals’ and that Red Dwarves were henceforth to be referred to as Socialist PORGs.
You may be interested to know that having secured the additional funding in the latest publics spending review; we are expanding our remit to take in the public at large now, which was always the long term aim as you know. Last week we held our initial brainstorm on how best to move forwards in this exciting expansion. One of our young fast track graduates hit upon the excellent idea of the first round of changes being focussed upon something near and dear to everybody, viz the name of the towns in which they live.
It was pointed out that the ending ham in some of these names is deeply offensive to the Orthodox Jewish community in the UK. Accordingly we have decided to remove this ending such that Birmingham becomes Birming, Evesham becomes Eves and so on and so forth. Obviously this gives us a problem with Oldham which would become Old. Therefore we propose to rename it Mature.
The next generic change is for those towns whose name begins with New. In recognition of the valuable contribution to our economy and culture made by the Polish Community these will be given the prefix Nowy. Thus Newport becomes Nowyport and Newcastle becomes Nowycastle. A bit of a mouthful for the Geordies no doubt but an essential change we feel.
In recognition of the part played in our country by the Muslim community we propose that Allbrighton becomes Allahbrighton and that Hull is renamed Halal.
We are still working to expand upon this list and are treating each case on its merits. The immediate problem is in Dorset where we can not tolerate having the River Piddle and associated village names such as Piddletrenthide. I was leaning towards the River Relief. How do you feel about that?
In summary, I would like to thank you for your support. If I can be of further assistance please contact either myself or one of my assistants John, Jackie, Jakub, Ewa, Ivan, Tatiana, Mario, Isabella, Pieere, Michelle, Chung Li, Chop Suey, Hiram or Britney.
Fraternally Yours
Humphrey
