Learn your A, B and Cs
The author of this site has taken on the daunting task of creating the ultimate politically incorrect project: alphabet graphics.
Here’s how the project came about:
“My wife is a teacher of young children, and I’ve spent a fair time of late sitting on undersized chairs admiring the alphabet charts on classroom walls.
Typically ‘A’ will stand for Apple, ‘B’ for Ball. It occurred to me that ‘I’ for Indian, one I remember from my childhood, has been replaced as it is no longer politically correct to refer to native/first/indigenous Americans as Indians.
Lacking any tact or decency, I therefore determined to create an alphabet using only subjects that, while they might have been unremarked a few decades ago, are now outside acceptable usage. But only just.
And then it was my intention to illustrate these in a ‘modern’ style, something along the lines of Dick Bruna’s Miffy (OK, Miffy is 50, but still looks fresh). You can see those I’ve completed already on this page.“
Maybe not for everyone. My initial thought was that as flashcards it would be an excellent tool to show how our language changes and evolves. Words considered socially acceptable before are put out to pasture to be politically correct.
When a kid asks about “Eskimo Bars” what would you say?
Language appropriate to the context in which it is used may not be politically incorrect but rather simple description of the etymological change of our language.
The site invites you to participate and send in your suggestions to add to the project.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:05:59 PM
interesting!