I think that one of the main reasons I gave up work years ago was the desire shown by editors to control every syllable and image that came across their desks. Control freaks are a nuisance at the best of times, but when it comes to other people's thoughts, newspaper editors take the prize.
Political correctness was about to kick off at the end of the 1980's and it has now reaped a predictable whirlwind of nastiness and, in many cases, physical violence.
We are now so used to sissies on the Internet and in real life trying to control language that when I uploaded a "Kerryman" joke yesterday, a friend wondered if I might not be looking for trouble. The fact that the joke was about gardening or construction implements and could go down just as well in "Arkensas" (get the pun? SAW)only seemed to make matters worse.
I had to drop one of my doctors around the same time because everything was either twisted into some crazed medical dictionary and came out covered in spots. And writers can be the weirdest, as "the enemy within" lurks in most of them and sees danger where none actually exists.
Several have told me that the word "blog" is personally offensive to them. Perhaps that is why so many writers who write blogs to advertise their wares are so niggardly with comments. And, no... this is not the "N" word in disguise. It is a perfectly good, upstanding adverb that best suits the ninnies who would see threats in the most innocent of statements.
I hope all the editors who used edit my godmother's wise saws from my copy are ashamed of themselves. Though since they didn't know what they were doing, it probably doesn't matter.
And my godmother was not a carpenter... oh, just do a search for "SAW"...
Labels: linguistics, puns
