YES!!! we are so limited in what we can say and do now because of political 'correctness'. When I had my induction at work we were told about the phrases we were supposed to use and some of them were just silly. Police in London were told they could no longer refer to people as a good egg or a bad egg as it could be construed to be racist. How??????

Grr, it frustrates me. I think the main issues with PC is to do with disabled people or immigrants. To be honest I don't know what I'm allowed to call them. Apparently you can't call them 'coloured' but you can call them 'black' but I'd have thought it would be the other way round because not all immigrants are black, they're mixed, and black gives a definite line against 'white' people, as though they're complete opposites.
I heard of someone who needed to point someone out in a crowded hall, and incidentally it was a black man and she described him in every way except for the fact that he was black. But, if we were in a different country there would be no problem saying 'it's the white man over there'.
Really, as long as it's not ridiculous and much of an effort to say, I don't mind substituting it. Like, you can't say a person is wheelchair bound you say they're a wheelchair user, I think that's fine and I don't have a problem with it. It's when dirty old man becomes a sexually focused chronologically gifted individual that it gets silly.

Even now I'm wary of what I'm typing and I don't know if it's 'correct' or not but I hope I haven't caused offence to anyone. Sorry if I have, but there are so many rules now I don't know what to do with myself

Here's a link to some PC phrases. I'm not really sure how accurate they are, but they're so weird and ridiculous that they could well be true.

http://www.pcphrases.com/

Hm, my comment on this is in reference to two things:

Sex and violence. You can have way more gorey violence in a movie, but show a boob and Oh No! It's inappropriate!! Think about it... everyone freaks out about butts in icons and boobs at the superbowl... despite the fact that they are just body parts. Yet no one has a problem with someone shooting someone else's brains off on TV and splattering the gore over the wall; that's totally acceptable!! We can show dead bodies in CSI (even fake ones) yet we can only get away with nudity if it's an "educational" program on Discovery or something.

Boobies are evil and will cause our children to... I don't know... know what boobs look like?

Guns and violence is totally okay though cause that'll never make someone violent!

My father went as far as to say that the boobie at the superbowl was punishable by jail time and was WORSE than murdering someone or shooting them. That just shows you how f*ed up our country's morals are.

It's really out of hand in my opinion.

That whole thing ("wardrobe malfunction" at the superbowl) totally wasn't a big deal in Canada... at all.

There are bare breasts (without a nipple shield like Janet was wearing) on tv in the middle of the afternoon all the time. It's called fashion television. If it's in a sexual manner it would be after 8pm usually, but would not be censored and would just have a brief warning at the end of a commercial break ("viewer discretion advised").

I also remember when a late-night talk show host swore (like David Letterman or Jay Leno) and it was SUCH a big deal in the US. Swear words on Canadian tv aren't censored at all anytime after 7 or 8pm.

I know exactly what you're talking about Eiri, and I totally agree but I'm glad to say that sexuality and the human body are censored a whole lot less in Canada (and the UK).

^^ Yeah, I wish it was this way here... America freaks out about nipples but is totally unphased by murder...

Yeah, the UK is a lot less conservative than America but there's still a ludicrous amount of censorship. After the 9pm 'watershed' I don't think any swearwords should be censored but they still are.

I agree with Eiri that it seems sex is treated as a great naughty subject whereas violent imagery is deemed acceptable.

I totally agree. I would worry much more about children being desensitized to violence than desensitized to..... nipples (gasp!).

There's a channel called Slice and their "viewer discretion advised" warnings sound like...

"The following program may contain scenes of violence and adult language. Two out of three aint bad."

OR

"The following program may contain scenes of sexuality and adult language. Two out of three aint bad."

It makes me laugh.

Many of you may not listen to Howard Stern but he left the public airwaves for just that reason. He was being censored in every direction (more so after the Janet Jackson scandal). Now we have to pay for no censorship just to listen to him the way he wants his show. I totally agree his show is not for kids but i'm an adult. Why cant i watch what i want to watch. I dont need the government censoring. Its the religous right that the goverment bows to, they organize themselves and send massive amounts of complaints to the FCC and show sponsors. When i leave the U.S. i feel more free in other countries than here. How ironic.

I detest censorship in every form.

If someone wants to use a phrase that is racist, bigoted, discriminatory, etc. it reflects on their character.

If you realize that it is important to be sensitive because of the connotations of certains words, than that is a reflection of your character.

my favourite are the csi shows and all that junk. i call them dead women shows. they all start with a dead womans body that is then sliced and dissected in gory detail by the good guys. like, no we aren't exploiting womens bodies or promoting violence toward them, we are trying to find out who murdered them! aha! well it's okay then.

The beauty is that you dont have to endorse, watch, or be a part of that show. Just dont prevent me from watching it because you feel "its exploits womens body or violence towards them"
thank you.

It is, to be quite honest pathetic how Prude the American society is. Now i mean prude in the fact that a "Racy" film is one where a guy gets the girl, and you may see the blankets move.
The reason the original immigrants came to America was because they were prude, they believed that their own country was becoiming a sesspool of sin. Where as now we see homicide and Rape on a daily basis, yet almost never hear about it.
We are at war, soldiers are dying, yet what do we hear about? the latest celebrity "clothing malfuntion" or some other completely foolish thing that really has no effect on the country. Americans complain about society, how its leaving our children in a place where they turn to drugs, well if our emotions werent censored maybe they wouldnt, god forbid a kid cry when he looses his dog, or show any other emotion past anger.
America itself is run by soulless, heartless no namers who dont deserve the air they breath, and who will continue to censor us until we stand up and do something. The act of censorship itself is against the constitution, yet we sit back and let them do it?

Excellent points, and welcome to the forums