Shakespeare Isn't P.C. (Thought Police Rewrite Textbooks)

This kind of stuff really bugs me. Especially since i've noticed it filtering down to everday writing/talking the last few years. For instance, the other day i was reading some guy's post in another forum (not politcal) and, instead of using "he" or "he or she" to indicate some non-specific person, the guy kept using "she". I imagine he felt smugly enlightened by doing that too but i had nothing but contempt for him.

Also i was reading one of those "For Dummies" books the other week. It was about classical music and whenever they would refer to a non-specific musician the authors would go with "she" each time. I guess it was done to counter the fact that - horror of horrors - nearly all composers are male and so they were forced to go with "he" when talking in generalities there.

Sheesh, it's all become so convoluted. It was much simpler back in the days when everyone was smart enough to discern that "he" could mean either he or she in some cases. Instead we now have too many people with too much time on their hands, people who probably are quick to jump to the defense of someone who says something truly offensive (as long as the offending remarks weren't aimed at people/groups left of center, that is) but when it comes to this nonsense they are all-too-willing to censor.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Correction "it is a tale told by a person with learning disabilities, full of sound and fury, signifying unique communication strategies.

More Shakespeare modernized for contemporary PoMo sensibilities:

"Good night, sweet person of monarchical descent, and flights of socio-religious semiotic icons sing thee to thy rest"

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, but most are priveleged oppressors of the ruling phallocentric patriarchy"

"Let me have men and/or women and/or transgendered about me that are differentially-sized,
Persons of diverse hair, and such as are victims of sleep disorders.
Yond Cassius has a look of improper nutrition;
He thinks too much: such persons are at-risk..."

Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley textbook publishers demand that people "over the age of 65 must be fully represented in text and illustrations; there must be a larger number of older women than older men, because 55 percent of older persons are women."

One publisher went on to say,

"Where the Bee suck, there suck I.

(In a cowslip's bell I lie)".

I just cannot stop thinking about these, I am so revolted and disgusted by PC in general, and this literary vandalism in particular.

I suppose our struggle will be in vain, as we" groan and sweat like asses beneath the wheel of Business".

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

(I know, I know...this isn't from - or have anything to do with - Shakespeare, but I've always kind of liked this quote.)

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