One Of Those Things That Drives Me To Drink

When I first read this story I figured it had to be in California somewhere, because that's the only place wacky enough to do something this foolish. Turns out I was wrong. This nonsense emanates from Seattle, which I guess is sort of a CA-lite.

The word "citizen" is banned because it might offend non-citizens.

Government workers in the city of Seattle have been advised that the terms "citizen" and "brown bag" are potentially offensive and may no longer be used in official documents and discussions.

(Elliott Bronstein of the Office for Civil Rights) told KIRO Radio the word "citizen" should be avoided because many people who live in Seattle are residents, not citizens...

GMAFB.

As for "brown bag:"

Bronstein said the term "brown bag" has been used historically as a way to judge skin color.

"For a lot of particularly African-American community members, the phrase brown bag does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understand, to determine if people's skin color was light enough to allow admission to an event or to come into a party that was being held in a private home," Bronstein said.

That's a new one to me. Even if that was the case, however, it happened decades ago. Get over it, already.

The preferred terms in Seattle are "residents" for "citizens" and "sack lunch" instead of "brown bag."

Seattle, however, isn't the only city with an eye on potentially disruptive words.

The New York Post reported in March 2012 that the city’s Department of Education avoids references to words like “dinosaurs,” “birthdays,” “Halloween” and dozens of other topics on city-issued tests because they could evoke “unpleasant emotions” among the students.

Dinosaurs, for example, conjures the topic of evolution, which could rile fundamentalists and birthdays are not celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Halloween, meanwhile, suggests an affiliation to Paganism.

Oh my achin' back.

I guess if we tried hard enough we could find something offensive about every word in the dictionary (for example, I find the word "liberal" offensive). But at what point does this PC extremism become meaningless?

Or even worse, oppressive?