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05/28/2003 Archived Entry: "Language police bar 'old,' 'blind'"

THEY ARE ALREADY LOADED WITH ERRORS: But it turns out that school textbooks are combed over for any word that could possibly offend someone.

Oh heck: Hell hath no place in American primary and high school textbooks.

But then again you can't find anyone riding on a yacht or playing polo in the pages of an American textbook either. The texts also can't say someone has a boyish figure, or is a busboy, or is blind, or suffers a birth defect, or is a biddy, or the best man for the job, a babe, a bookworm, or even a barbarian.

All these words are banned from U.S. textbooks on the grounds that they either elitist (polo, yacht) sexist (babe, boyish figure), offensive (blind, bookworm) ageist (biddy) or just too strong (hell which is replaced with darn or heck). God is also a banned word in the textbooks because he or she is too religious.

These kinds of things are a good argument for home schooling. They are an even better argument for getting John Galt to finally create Galt's Gulch.