It was only a few days ago that I wrote a piece about how a country or state can make itself a laughing stock. Being the way I am, I inevitably included my usual suspects: Zimbabwe, North Korea, China and so on. I made the point that all such a state has to do is to adopt some crackpot ideology - e.g. extreme Islam, extreme nationalism, Stalinist Communism etc.
Well today's Daily Telegraph reports that a Super-State is (again actually) making itself a laughing-stock. The Super-state is of course the European Union and the ideology utilised this time is political correctness, another of my pet "hobby-horses."
Unbelievably - to me at least - these crazy people want to ban such words as "Miss" and "Mrs" and of course their equivalents in other European languages such as "Senora" and "Senorita" and "Madame" and "Mademoiselle." All language it seems shall be "gender-neutral" in future.
The reasoning? Well it seems that it is thought that female members of the European Parliament (MEPs) might be "offended" - that damned word again.
I am furious that anyone who might be occupying a seat in the European Parliament should be so incredibly stupid as to be offended by the use of words such as those mentioned above. I am also furious that such a stupid initiative should be yet another charge on the taxpayer resulting from the insane regulations that continue to be issued from Brussels.
The article points out that every pair of rubber boots sold in the EU must be accompanied by a "User Manual" - printed in 12 languages!
Imagine: first a page telling the owner not to burn the boots and to dispose of them in an environmentally-responsible fashion, blah blah. Then a list of the multifarious organisations that have declared the boots (no doubt at vast expense) fit for use. These pages of tedium would perhaps be followed by illustrations showing how to put on the boots and perhaps how to walk in them.
Potty, absolutely potty.
Until the next time
Well today's Daily Telegraph reports that a Super-State is (again actually) making itself a laughing-stock. The Super-state is of course the European Union and the ideology utilised this time is political correctness, another of my pet "hobby-horses."
Unbelievably - to me at least - these crazy people want to ban such words as "Miss" and "Mrs" and of course their equivalents in other European languages such as "Senora" and "Senorita" and "Madame" and "Mademoiselle." All language it seems shall be "gender-neutral" in future.
The reasoning? Well it seems that it is thought that female members of the European Parliament (MEPs) might be "offended" - that damned word again.
I am furious that anyone who might be occupying a seat in the European Parliament should be so incredibly stupid as to be offended by the use of words such as those mentioned above. I am also furious that such a stupid initiative should be yet another charge on the taxpayer resulting from the insane regulations that continue to be issued from Brussels.
The article points out that every pair of rubber boots sold in the EU must be accompanied by a "User Manual" - printed in 12 languages!
Imagine: first a page telling the owner not to burn the boots and to dispose of them in an environmentally-responsible fashion, blah blah. Then a list of the multifarious organisations that have declared the boots (no doubt at vast expense) fit for use. These pages of tedium would perhaps be followed by illustrations showing how to put on the boots and perhaps how to walk in them.
Potty, absolutely potty.
Until the next time
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