Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts, and, as purported by the term, doing so to an excessive extent. In current usage, the term is primarily pejorative, while the term politically incorrect has been used as an implicitly positive self-description. Examples of the latter include the conservative The Politically Incorrect Guide published by Regnery Publishing and the television talk show Politically Incorrect. In these cases, the term politically incorrect connotes language, ideas, and behavior unconstrained by a perceived orthodoxy or by concerns about offending or expressing bias regarding various groups of people.
Read more about Political Correctness: Current Usage, Linguistics, Criticisms, Science, Right-wing Political Correctness, Satirical Use
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or correctness:
“Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father’s curse, mother’s moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)