Stripping language of meaning in the name of “correctness”

Let me just say from the start, I’m irritated. There are so many things going on in the world that irritate (and sicken) me right now I don’t even know where to begin. What the media tries to convince us is (and isn’t) “news”, irritates the piss out of me, but more on that later.

Society’s asinine, lemming-like allegiance to “political-correctness” irritates me. I’m all in favor of inclusive language, up to a point, but that point is a rapidly vanishing dot on the horizon behind us. Allow me to illustrate. I was accidentally watching the Fox “News” channel earlier. You know how they run the crawl across the bottom of the screen with news headlines and snippets of news? Well, one particular item caught my attention. Something about a “homicide” bomber blowing up a car and killing 10 people in Baghdad.

What they mean, of course, is a “suicide bomber”, but because some group (I vaguely recall this discussion a few years back) took umbrage at the use of that term, some in the media have adopted the phrase “homicide bomber”. Here’s what’s wrong with that:

Isn’t anyone who uses explosives to blow people the fuck up, thereby killing them, a “homicide bomber”. Yes, of course s/he is. What makes a suicide bomber different is that they go along for the ride, not unlike (well not really like, either) Slim Pickens’ character, Major T.J. ‘King’ Kong, in Dr. Strangelove. The point here is that they blow up too; on purpose!

When someone says “suicide bomber”, everyone knows what they mean. “Homicide bomber”, on the other hand, doesn’t really carry much more meaning than the word “bomber” and leaves the listener/reader to guess at the meaning.

On FMNC (the Foul-Mouthed News Channel), we’re going to call them “Blew themselves and some other people right the fuck on up bombers”. Kinda catchy, don’t you think?