Aren't most of the discussions about terminology ways of mocking serious issues? Those of us old enough to remember the 60's saw how the feminist movement was treated. The issue was never about burning underwear, but that was a way of deflecting discussion. When you don't have a logical or ethical leg to stand on, use sarcasm.
The issue about words is not that a group of "Them" wants us to say "spokesperson" instead of a perfectly good neutral term like "representative." The issue is respect (as was previously posted.) There is a real difference between the people who refer to my son as "autistic", "developmentally delayed", or "mentally challenged" and the ones who call him "dumb", "weird", or a "retard". By making people think about what they say, and what it means, the "PC Police" are, on balance, doing us a favor. Certainly it is easy to find humor in terms such as "waitperson", but remember a time when labels based on skin color, gender, first language, creed (or lack of it), or even birthplace were used to decide who could live where, who had tax money spent on their education, who could run for office, who could vote, or even who could live.
It's easy to laugh about the fuss that was made at a recycling center. Seems that dyed and undyed paper are recycled differently, so two bins were marked respectively "White" and "Colored". On the one hand it is refreshing to know that the young man who posted the labels had no idea why anyone would find that offensive. On the other hand it is well within the lifetimes of many of us to have seen signs like that on public restrooms, drinking fountains, waiting rooms, or entrances to buildings. Those same signs also were on a lot of things, even when they weren't physically present. Oversensitivity? Maybe. After all, we all know how *those* people overreact to everything. On the other hand maybe we are just erring on the side of trying to be fair and kind to each other for a change.
Sorry for the length of the post, it just hurts to see good ideas fail because people want to make fun of them rather than think about them.
