Calling a spade a spade

I notice that Big Brother has removed a contestant for using a racist word in conversation with another member of the house.

I have no reason to judge the decision to remove her, but it does raise this whole area of political correctness once again.

I am reminded of Mike Newell, the Luton football manager, indicating the use of a female linesman was , quote, "tokenism - for the politically-correct idiots, we have a problem in this country with political correctness and bringing women into the game is not the way to improve refereeing and officialdom.

In this case had he referred to the situation as positive discrimination, rather than political correctness, he may well have found more support for his tirade.

With regard to language, however, I feel we old 'uns are discriminated against, as many of the words we traditionally used , have been deemed as potentially offensive or been given alternative meanings.......nobody ever sits on a poof anymore, and 'gay day' now represents a festival for the pink pound brigade. I remember getting a serious ticking off from the RFU for referring to the Bank of England rugby team, which was largely populated with South Africans, as Kaffirs. In my day Kaffirs was the term used in the City to refer to Krugerrands, so I thought it quite apt. Apparently the word is now banned in South Africa as it is highly offensive.

It is also interesting that youngsters are regularly inventing new language which is often community or age group specific and is considered part of the natural evolution of communication. The flowery language of the 50's and 60's is now consigned to Wikipedia and other such language repositories.

Plus ca change