The Magistrates Association, in a bid to promote inclusive communication, has raised eyebrows by urging staff and volunteers to steer clear of words like ‘policemen’ and ‘chairmen’. The Mail has more.
Words such as ‘policemen’ and ‘chairmen’ have been banned in barmy advice handed out by a court industry body.
The Magistrates Association told its staff and volunteers to avoid umbrella terms such as “black, Asian or minority ethnic groups”, which can be “unintentionally divisive”.
It also encouraged them to “describe someone’s sexual orientation in the terms they suggest”.
The 29-page document has sparked a backlash among free speech campaigners, who say it is being peddled by ‘woke warriors’. Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union, said: “People are sick to the back teeth of this obsession with policing people’s speech.
“Do these woke warriors really think they’ll dismantle the patriarchy if people start referring to policemen as police officers? The Magistrates Association should be focusing on getting through the backlog of cases and making sure anti-social behaviour is properly punished.”
The style guide, issued to staff in England and Wales, advises them to avoid using terms that might “cause upset”. They include using “died by suicide” instead of “committed suicide” or “taken their own life”.
Tom Franklin, Chief Executive of the Magistrates Association, said he wants the guide, published in September last year, to “be part of everyone’s working day”.
Worth reading in full.
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Responding to the criticism, Mr Franklin said: ‘Long gone are the days when magistrates were exclusively male, white and over 60.
‘We are proud that the magistracy is now the most diverse part of the judiciary… It means that when magistrates sit in court, they bring a wide range of life experiences to their work.
How’s that related to trying to police other people’s use of language based on someone’s entirely theoretical ideas regarding how English really should look like as opposed to what it does look like? Eg, why is committed suicide likely to cause upset while died by suicide isn’t? Where did the money used to compile this list come from and why wasn’t it used for something sensible instead?
My mother, 17 years ago now, very sadly committed suicide.
Her suicide upset me then and continues to upset me now. I’m not in the least bit upset by the language used to describe her actions.
Isn’t it odd how the whole of our institutions have converted to the new religion, and yet you never hear of any individual’s conversion story. Was the CEO of the Magistrates Association an ideologue since university, who took his faith into his job? Did he suddenly become woke by reading intersectional books from his local library? Was he transformed by a course run from his HR department? Or was he visited in his sleep by black angels?
Somehow the cult seems to include secrecy as well as lockstep action in its creed – they all tell everyone how they ought to change, but never how they changed themselves.
Just ban the use of every title except “comrade”, as that’s clearly where we’re heading.
I’m waiting to see what they do with the word “midwife”.
Wait until they find “human”!
Still, I bet they won’t bother with “binmen”…
Given the almost complete erasure of anything to do with women/female from the NHS these days, what about birthing person assistant? I’m sure midwives up and down the country will be jumping for joy at losing the shackles of their patriarchal/white privilege/[add ideological woke emotive here] naming. Not.
Or “To all who sail in her” when launching a ship.
As Symes said, “‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’” And then he was gone, the only evidence being one name less on the chess player list….
Do we now live in a world where there is absolutely nobody in a position of authority who isn’t a complete and utter psychopathic, mad as a badger dipsh*t? I think we’re at a stage where it’s quicker to name people who are *not* members of this Cult of Woke than who are. It’s a travesty. Speaking of which, this video of a young woman sharing her experience of transitioning to a male then de-transitioning is heart-wrenching, all the more because her only ‘crime’ was being a kid, vulnerable and confused, but trusting in the adults around her who betrayed and abused her. The worst thing is that her story echoes so many others’ experiences that are exactly the same. Society continues to fail young people.( 6min )
https://twitter.com/againstgrmrs/status/1689743032961150976
Brings to mind the charity advert of concerned middle class ladies opining that ‘girls as young as 12 are being married to men three times their age, or subjected to FGM. Its terrible’.
Yes it is, but you need to look down the dark back streets of your town, and in the clinics that purport to provide support and care to confused teenagers. Never mind what happens to the donkeys. You should see what we do to the kids…
Have they also banned ‘guilty’, ‘young offenders institute’, and ‘3 years in prison’..?
Missed a trick on suicide, didn’t they – a more woke version without the etymological Latin root should be ‘died by own hand’.
“deliberate killing of oneself,” 1650s, from Modern Latin suicidium “suicide,” from Latin sui “of oneself” (genitive of se “self”), from PIE *s(u)w-o- “one’s own,” from root *s(w)e- (see idiom) + -cidium “a killing,” from caedere “to slay” (from PIE root *kae-id- “to strike”).
It’s all linguistic hair-splitting b*ll*cks anyway – their ideology is so thin it’ll be something else next week.
Changing the language might make euthanasia easier to normalise further down the line. This can be seen in fiction like The Giver where death is referred to as “elsewhere” as would any situation where a person is no longer heard from.
Haven’t the Canadians already done this with the MAID Act? Sounds so innocuous doesn’t it, maid – all bucolic milking parlours and buxom pink-cheeked wenches, not the state-encouraged murder it really is.
It’s all linguistic hair-splitting b*ll*cks anyway – their ideology is so thin it’ll be something else next week.
Though I said that already….!
This is a troll/bot, whatever, but I’ve reported it. They copy other people’s posts. They’ve done it elsewhere too and account only appeared yesterday. Dead giveaway.
We MUST say this ———–“I have an education and I own a dictionary and I will choose my own words”——–To allow some authority to choose them for you means you are allowing them to also choose your thoughts. This has nothing to do with trying to be polite. It is about control of language to control every argument.
I was a big fan of Manfred Person back in the Seventies. Me and my old Fisherperson friend went to see them at the Playhouse. I remember the Bin Persons were on strike and my Fisher Person friend tripped over one on the way out. —-Person did he have a sore leg the next day. But not nearly as bad as when I tripped over a Person Hole cover in the road one day.
Perhaps they should ban the use of magistrate which comes from latin for “master” how bad is that?…fucking hypocrites