Hello.

I heard much about "politcally Correct" speech, sepcially in Ottawa and Ontario. As (ex)-Austrian PC speak and lingo almost makes me fall down and laugh while rolling on the floor, yet I heard it is a crucial part of everyday life, especially in larger companies and government buildings.

What is PC lingo? Is it true? How bad is it? Did you ever fail to be PC?

Thank you!

A few pointers:

• The Christmas season is referred to as the "holiday season".
  
• What we used to call "Red Indians" are now referred to as First Nations, or even Aboriginals.
  
• Don't automatically assume that every female you encounter at work is a secretary.

But I think it is still acceptable to refer to Austrians as "Nazi collaborators."

Is that an admission on how little they know about the history of the 20th Century or was that meant as a joke?

I've just had a meeting with my boss, and another female employee. We were sketching out design idea for a microsite. The initial sketch closely resembled a penis, so navigation buttons naturally became sperm. The two ladies made various comments about size and shape. That's how PC the marketing department is here.

It's probably both. The joke part being in bad taste.

We have some old photos of my grandparents, great aunts and uncles etc, as well as some of my husbands German grandparents, great aunts, uncles etc. We didnt put them up in England as we didn't think the WWI and WWII German uniforms would go down too well. We think we are going to display them here. I don't know if that's a sign of more tolerance, better manners, better understanding or ignorance of uniforms and history. Whatever it is it makes things easier.

I don't find it any more PC here, in some ways it's less. At work it will probably have something in your contract about not being mean to people.

Don't come the innocent with me, you sausage-munching capitulator. I've seen The Sound of Music too many times. Oh Ja!

I think you will find that most Canadians think it is ridiculous to call it the holiday season. You may be confused with the USA.

The Canadian government seems overly PC. However the Canadian populace is much less PC than in the UK I find, but not in any nasty way.

I found that living in Toronto at least it was very common to hear people refer to the holiday season rather than Christmas especially in my sons primary school. I also used to see very few Christmas cards that actually said Merry Christmas, Season's Greeting and Happy Holidays were a lot more common, of course they were probably printed in the USA

[QUOTE=fledermaus;6941033]It's probably both. The joke part being in bad taste.

We have some old photos of my grandparents, great aunts and uncles etc, as well as some of my husbands German grandparents, great aunts, uncles etc. We didnt put them up in England as we didn't think the WWI and WWII German uniforms would go down too well. We think we are going to display them here. I don't know if that's a sign of more tolerance, better manners, better understanding or ignorance of uniforms and history. Whatever it is it makes things easier.


Thats interesting. I like my history and am very interested in ww1/2. I would have to give a huge amount of respect for anyone who stood up and fought for their country, German or English.