The new guidance sets out politically correct terms. It’s the classic story. Every so often we get a story of new words added to the dictionary and then old words banned in another story. One in one out.
Judges in England and Wales have been advised to avoid terms such as “gays” and “lame”. When I was growing up you’d call something lame if it was a bit naff. The generation above me did that with the word gay, so it’s good that we have movement on what is seen as acceptable.
Some of it is less useful. In the new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book it advises that “person seeking asylum” is now preferred to “asylum seekers”.
Now, hang on. I’m all for being polite but that two things mean exactly the same. And I know this as a GCSE English holder. Sorry, a person who holds a GCSE English.
It also says “immigrant” and “refugee” should only be used where such terms are factually correct. Well, yeah. If you’re calling someone an immigrant when they’re not, you shouldn’t be using that term. That’s how words work.
Homosexual is also banned. Surely any euphemism is far more offensive.
There’s no point causing offence where it doesn’t have to be caused but we do need a system where a judge isn’t worried about picking the wrong word when dealing with the case.
Fortunately we’ll never know if this is better or worse than the way things were as that would require our courts getting round to processing any asylum cases. By the time that happen there’ll be another edition out.
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