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>>What does IMNSHO mean <<
In my not so humble opinion.
We 'speak' in capitals because we're too lazy to type in full!
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>>Just how much should language be expected to change in the interests of political correctness? We've touched on this a bit again in our discussions of personal pronouns and being "one of the guys". <<
It's complicated, and hard, and everyone will have different ideas.
I agree that political correctness has gone too far, but I think that it is a good thing to think a little about the assumptions behind everyday speech. That more than anything is why I would use 'their' rather than 'his' as a generic singular.
Related to this idea of assumptions behind speech, I read an article once about 'making people disappear'. It described a teacher who put up various sentences for her class (I think they were age 8 or 10 or so) and asked them to work out who the 'disappeared' people were. Sentences such as 'Every kid dreams of growing up to be a racing driver.'
Apparently the girls in the class cottoned on much more quickly than the boys, but then they were the ones being 'disappeared'.
It sounds trivial, but compare
'Every little kid dreams of being a racing car driver.'
'Every little kid dreams of being a famous dancer.'
Liberal-minded egalitarian feminist that I am, I would still be more likely to slip over the first one without a blink than the second. Even after having read the article adn thought about it logically, I wouldn't necessarily pick it up in day-to-day speech. Attitudes are unfortunately ingrained deeply.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>,,,why does everyone speak in CAPITAL letters (like YCLIU)
acronyms are capitalized so as to discriminate from *real words. 'wwftd' is a noted exception.
-ron obvious
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Forgot to say - the absolutely WORST piece of PCspeak I ever heard in person was 'dermatologically challenged' for 'black'.
The user was most definitely a covert racist too.
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>>I agree chairperson is an abomination. I would go with chair every time. << My mother, who chaired a lot of meetings, hates chairperson too, but could never quite work out if it was more insulting to be called a man or a piece of furniture! 
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Pooh-Bah
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>acronyms are capitalized so as to discriminate from *real words
And do we need all these new acronyms? I was merely pointing out that some ways of using language are every bit as irritating to some people (like me) as language which aims to remove gender issues is to others (like you).
It is so good that we have a forum like this to share our irritations.
I'm just off to kick the cat.
(It's OK animal lovers, I haven't got a cat)
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Pooh-Bah
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I rather like "circumferentially challenged". It has just the right feel about it and shows how the really silly things get translated into a joke in the end.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>And do we need all these new acronyms?
actually®, no. but it's terribly hard to get along on the 'net without a working knowledge of them; happily, we have managed to avoid most of them on this site -- which in the event seems appropriate.
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TEd>Do other languages have this problem or is the "Man" - man problem confined solely to English? In the midst of your philippic  , you raise an interesting question. I hope some of our "foreign correspondents" chime in on this.
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Pooh-Bah
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>is the "Man" - man problem confined solely to English?
Of couse many other languages (eg Spanish, French) have many more male and females - tables, chairs, socks. We only have a few - ships are always female aren't they?
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