>The term Political Correctness is itself a very strong example of
>introducing a term into the language and shaping thought by doing so.
Pardon? Political correctness is a phrase introduced to describe a thought process that some people already had - i.e. it doesn't matter how racist/sexist/whatever someone is, as long as they don't actually use offensive words (as defined, normally, by someone other than the person who might actually take offense).
Or are you thinking that the term shapes my thought as in someone says 'I believe in political correctness' and I think 'what a <word deleted on the advice of the Eudora chilli>'...
In general (and to attempt to bring some relevance to the post) any real language can be twisted to express any thought. Some languages facilitate certain expressions better than others, but, for instance, the lack of a proper future tense in English doesn't prevent me expressing thoughts on what I'll do tomorrow. At the very worst, you simply have to assign meanings to words that either don't exist, or have very different meanings before hand. Preventing language from being twisted to facilitate new expressions would require eternal vigilance. And therein lies the fun - assigning a Lunar hero band (or whatever the current obnoxious term for 'the party' is) a linguistic supervisor to ensure their communications are in adherence to the approved code...
Cheers,
Graham
-- Graham Robinson graham_at_... Albion Software Engineering Ltd.
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