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EXTRAS: linguaspectrum.com A term that has become increasingly popular in English since the 1970s has been political correctness or PC. In simple terms, this means avoiding the use of words or phrases that might upset someone’s sensibilities. In more complex terms, this means being afraid to say what you think because it just might be deemed offensive by the PC Brigade. It is a curtailing of our freedom of speech. We can’t call someone short anymore; we must call them vertically challenged. Nor can we call someone bald. Bald people are now follicular challenged. That is, according to the PC Brigade. When I was a young boy and someone called me names, I would tell my mother. She would say, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can never hurt you.” On a purely physical level, she was right. On a psychological level, however, she was a little off the mark. Calling people names can hurt them. Name calling is a favourite technique of the bully. Calling the child who wears glasses, four-eyes, or the child who is not as tall as his peers, shorty or squirt is bullying, plain and simple. Children are natural bullies, but most mature and grow out of the tendency to bully others. Those sad people who fail to mature and take their bullying behaviour into the workplace are to be pitied as inadequate excuses for human beings. Bullies bully in order to achieve a sense of self-worth that is otherwise lacking in their sad and sorry little lives. As a way of stamping out the …