年度政治錯誤用語排行 “豬流感”居首
'Swine flu', the word used to describe the killer viral infection, has been named the most politically incorrect word of 2009 by Global Language Monitor, a group that studies word usage.
"Though hundreds of millions know of the current pandemic as swine flu, various governments and agencies for political motives ranging from protecting pork producers to religious sensitivity have chosen to address the virus by its formal name, influenza A(H1N1)," the GLM said.
'Flush toilet', 'green revolution', 'minority' and 'saint' follow 'swine flu' in the list that was prepared from a proprietary algorithm by tracking the frequency of words and phrases in the global print and electronic media, on the Internet, throughout the blogosphere, as well as accessing proprietary databases.
The terms 'politically correct', 'oriental', 'founding fathers', 'black sheep', and 'senior citizen' complete the top 10.
"Once again, we are seeing that the attempt to remove all bias from language is itself creating biases of their own," said GLM's chief word analyst, Paul JJ Payack.
"At this point it is becoming increasingly difficult to engage in any form of public dialogue without offending someone's sensitivities, whether right, left or centre," he said.
The GLM analysis also said that 'minority' is a politically incorrect word as "talking about minorities is considered insensitive to the community since this can make them feel, well, like minorities".
"The term politically correct, itself, is now politically correct," the GLM said, adding "be careful how you use it".
In the US, the word 'oriental' is considered offensive to Asians because the term is based on the geographic relationship of Asia from a Western perspective.
"In Europe (and in most Asian nations), however, 'Oriental' is acceptable," the GLM said.
'Founding fathers' was another incorrect word in the list.
"Though all the signers of the American Declaration of Independence were men, this is considered sexists in some quarters," the GLM said, adding it is better to use the term founders.
語言研究組織全球語言監測機構（GLM）日前公佈“2009年政治錯誤用語”排行榜，用以描述（最近流行的）致命性流感病毒的“豬流感”一詞居榜首。
全球語言監測機構稱：“儘管起初人們都知道眼下的流感爲豬流感，但各國政府和政治性機構或是出於對豬肉生產商的保護，或是出於宗教敏感性的考慮，後來將其正名爲學名‘甲型H1N1流感’。”
“抽水馬桶”、“綠色革命”、“少數民族”和“聖人”位居“豬流感”之後。全球語言監測組織使用一種專用數學模型來追蹤詞和短語在全球紙質和電子媒體、互聯網和博客圈中出現的頻率，並通過訪問專項數據庫編撰出了該榜。
躋身該榜前十位的詞彙還包括“政治上正確”、“東方”、“創始之父”、“害羣之馬”和“老年人”。
全球語言監測機構的首席詞語分析員保羅•JJ•帕亞克說：“我們又一次看到，試圖摒除語言中存在的所有偏見的做法，結果是製造出了另外的偏見。”
他說：“現如今，在參與任何形式的公共對話時做到不觸犯任何人的‘神經’越來越難，無論是右派、左派還是中間派。”
分析還指出，“少數派”在政治上是一個錯誤用語，“說少數派被認爲是對這一羣體的漠視，因爲這會讓他們感到自己是少數派。”
全球語言監測機構說：“‘政治上正確’這個詞本身現在在政治上也正確了”，“但在運用時要小心”。
在美國，“東方”一詞被認爲是對亞洲人的冒犯，因爲這一說法是基於以西方的視角來看待亞洲的地形關係。
全球語言檢測機構說：“不過，在歐洲（以及亞洲大部分國家），‘東方’一詞可以被接受。”
“創始之父”也犯了“政治錯誤”。
全球語言檢測機構稱：“雖然美國《獨立宣言》的所有簽名者都是男性，但在某些地區該詞被認爲帶有性別歧視意味，”因此用“創始人”一詞更好。
Vocabulary:
proprietary: exclusively owned; private 專有的
blogosphere: the set of all weblogs on the Internet 博客圈
