"Mentally Retarded" Officially Deemed Unacceptable By Increasingly Irrelevant Style Guide

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Anti-spyware, high-definition, outsourcing, podcast, text messaging, social networking, snail mail, and Wikipedia are now acceptable terms to use, according to the updated Associated Press Style Manual, which is the bane of j-school students everywhere. Gone are barmaid, blue blood, malarkey, milquetoast, Photostat, riffraff and WAC (for Women's Army Corps., no longer used by the U.S. military). And because nobody is going to be confused by "9/11," it's now an acceptable proper noun that also means "Sept. 11." On the politically correct front, stop writing "mentally retarded"; please begin using "mentally disabled." And if you're going to talk about a person of color, note that the previous edition said the "preferred term is black," but now "an American black person of African descent" should be described as "African-American." Oh, but "black is also acceptable. The terms are not necessarily interchangeable." [AP]

Jun 26, 2008 · Link · Respond
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