Letter to the editor, the San Diego Union-Tribune, June 8, 2000:

Even though the phrase "political correctness" is ridiculed in some quarters, I'm in favor of the concept. It's frequently nothing more than exercising some kindness, consideration or sensitivity. Perhaps the most common and logical example is the use of "person" in place of the gender-limited "man."

Using "developmentally challenged" to describe some children previously called "slow" probably was a good idea, although it spawned an unbelievable variety of joke spinoffs, such as "vertically challenged" for short people.

I particularly like two fairly recent examples. "The Hebrew Bible" and "The Christian Bible" are better names for the Old and New Testaments for obvious reasons. And historians and anthropologists are leading the way in replacing A.D. and B.C. with C.E. (the Common Era) and B.C.E. (Before the Common Era). This eliminates the unnecessarily narrow, religiously sectarian implications while maintaining the long-established time frames.

—Rocky Velgos
Vista

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