[merrylander]

Does it really require anything more than common courtesy? Words can hurt and can be chosen with just that purpose in mind. They can also please or at least be neutral and neither flatter nor offend. Much of what is called PC may simply be a case of regarding your audience as individuals or as one individual whatever the case may be.

It was not a case of being politically correct but the exercise of courting my wife across 500 miles was an interesting, but nearly daunting task. I had to express what was truly in my heart but to do so I had to find words that to a technical writer were most certainly unfamiliar. And to write them to a woman that I really did not know all that well, up to that point we had only shaken hands. Well there were two phone calls that got quite intense.

So in discussing a sensitive subject with perfect strangers choosing your words becomes an interesting exercise. What is your intent? Are you presenting an idea or concept for discussion? Or has the discussion already progressed to the stage that you really want to shock and upset. BTDT. This may well be the crux as we presumably are discussing politics hence PC. People usually have fairly definite ideas and positions and so if we hope to persuade them to examine their ideas we must tread softly. Reasonable people will examine proposals and re-examine their own ideas honestly. Hard and fast believers will simply respond with canned phrases. Now can we call such a response PC? I submit that it is not because the responder has simply dismissed the idea or concept out of hand.