Political correctness

政治正確性

Racist comment is taboo. But there are many more minefields that people try to avoid in daily life to avoid public offense.

帶有種族主義色彩的評論是一大禁忌。但日常生活中存在更多的雷區，人們需要盡量回避以免引發眾怒。

Former Harvard president Lawrence Summers in 2005 explained why there were fewer female scientists in elite universities. He put it down to different innate ability between men and women.

在2005年，哈佛大學前任校長勞倫斯•薩莫斯（音譯）在解釋了為何頂尖大學中女性科學家人數較少這一問題時。他將其歸因于男女天生有別。

This caused a furor. Summers issued an apology: "I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women."

此舉引發轟動。薩莫斯公開致歉說：“我錯誤地用那樣的方式說話，無意地發出了錯誤的信號，讓有才能的女性感到受挫。”

Interpretations of history can cause offense. A French politician was sentenced to jail recently for remarks about the Nazi occupation of France.

詮釋歷史也會觸怒公眾。最近，法國一位政治家就因其關于納粹占領法國的言論而被判入獄。

His remarks were considered "politically incorrect".

他的言論被認為是“政治上不正確的”。

In the book A Short History of Political Correctness, Ruth Perry explains that in order to cause minimum offense to race, gender, age, profession, religion, culture, disability and so on, political correctness, as an umbrella, functions as a social consensus on language, policy, behavior and other ideas to ensure no social group suffers from discrimination.

在《政治正確性簡史》一書中，魯茲•帕瑞（音譯）解釋說，政治正確性是一把保護傘，作為就語言、政治、行為及其他思想而達成的社會共識，以確保所有社會群體不受歧視，最大程度上減小對宗族、性別、年齡、職業、宗教、文化、殘疾的冒犯。

Thus any ignite violation of social taboos and political correctness could cause damage.

因此任何違反社會禁忌以及政治正確性的導火索都可能帶來傷害。

"We live in a culture in which a breach of political correctness is criminal," said Leo Schwartz in the Columbia Daily Spectator last week.

“在我們所處的文化之中，違反政治正確性即是犯罪。”里奧•施瓦茲（音譯）于上周的《哥倫比亞觀察家》中如是說。

Taboo-buster

禁忌語大掃除

Don't joke about bombs: A new taboo due to the US' war on terrorism. Remember Chandler Bing in Friends? He is detained for a joke. In real life, the consequences could be far worse.

不要拿炸彈來開玩笑：這是美國反恐戰爭所產生的最新禁忌語。記得《老友記》中的錢德賓（音譯）嗎？他因為一個玩笑而被扣押。在實際生活中，其后果可能更嚴重。

Nigger: A taboo and very offensive word to call a black person. Although black brothers call each other nigger, you can't.

Nigger（意為黑鬼）：這是一個禁忌語，而且對黑人一種十分不敬的稱謂。盡管黑人兄弟間彼此這樣稱呼，但你不行。