Political Correctness has Gone to the Dogs…
‘Happened across a National Trust sign the other day which helpfully confirmed that those with difficulties with their sight would be welcome to bring their dogs into the house. So far so good. But something was troubling me (often is..). They had fiddled with the language: no longer that well known term which we all accept and which is so clear. Oh no! Some salaried National Trust would-be lexicologist had to spin the concept. What the sign actually said was: “Assistance dogs welcome”.
What, we might ask, has become politically incorrect about calling these dear, bright creatures ‘Guide dogs’? It is a term which the OED tells us has been about since at least 1932 (coined, it seems, by the World Conference on Work for Blind). Are we - or the blind - or maybe even the dogs themselves - to be offended by the adjective ‘guide’? And does ‘assistance’ really cut the mustard? The dog does actually guide after all - does it really assist? In what: tea-making? Light gardening? The odd drive in the country? No - it ‘guides’.
They do a fabulous job and are worth much more than their weight in gold, but are we in the interests of political correctness, really to re-label them? And is there to be a domino effect on other guide-compounds? Look out for ‘assistance-ropes’ for your tents; ‘assistance-lines’ for your rules; and of course ‘assistance-books’ probably within the National Trust house itself… Personally, Wamba, Jemima and I will doggedly stick to the old way.
