It’s been quite some time since the French secured a resounding victory over anybody. Their days of empire are long over, and everyone appears to only remember them for being boat raced by the Germans in World War II and slapped like a disobedient child during the 1952 Suez Crisis. They weren’t alone—Great Britain was also scolded. The two nations, plus Israel, were forced to withdraw from Egypt, signaling Britain’s end as a preeminent world power.
But I digress. The political correctness games the left and their media allies have played finally caught up with them. The Associated Press ended up having their figurative head placed in the guillotine. The Associated Press has long been at this game of destroying language to fit the narrative of the institutional left. You can’t say illegal alien, pro-choice, or other non-offensive words because it makes their side look bad.
I’ll say and write whatever the sweet hell I want, but the style guide has elicited eye rolls from most. Now a whole country was offended because of this tweet, which has since been deleted.
Use the modifiers anti-abortion or abortion-rights; don’t use pro-life, pro-choice or pro-abortion unless they are in quotes or proper names.
Avoid the term abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions.— APStylebook (@APStylebook) May 3, 2022
“We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing ‘the’ labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.”
The French Embassy quickly went to war with this tweet, which sparked a backlash for being inordinately brainless. Even The New York Times had to write about AP getting a face full of buckshot, which was avoidable if they didn’t serve at the altar of political correctness.
Lmfaoooo https://t.co/EhzZ2forsO pic.twitter.com/fIK4yycP8C
— Damin Toell (@damintoell) January 27, 2023
“Certainly, the French Embassy in the United States reacted with indignation on Thursday to the A.P. tweet. It published a spoof on Twitter suggesting that it had renamed itself ‘the Embassy of Frenchness in the United States,'” they wrote.
“We just wondered what the alternative to the French would be…I mean, really,” said Pascal Confavreux, an embassy spokesman. The Times also included a quote from AP’s corporate communications vice president, who did not make things better, to say the least.
“Lauren Easton, the vice president of A.P. corporate communications, told the French daily newspaper Le Monde that ‘the reference to ‘the French,’ as well as the reference to ‘the college educated’ is an effort to show that labels shouldn’t be used for anyone, whether they are traditionally or stereotypically viewed as positive, negative or neutral.'”
So, in other words, these clowns were just bored and wanted to cause a stir when none was needed. Paula Froke didn’t even respond to The Times, a liberal paper, for comment, which means they know they screwed up. The “woke” tendency to not offend made a whole country indignant. You cannot write a better script about how liberal societal tendencies fail, reserved only for the small, academic-based bubbles of college campuses—and nowhere else. And even then, it’s semi-tolerable, but at least it’s contained to an area and a people whom we expect to be insufferable, condescending, and self-righteous.
So, like the Brits and the French after Suez, the AP deserves a slapping and a timeout, maybe forever, when it comes to AP style guide recommendations.
