July 11, 2003

Beware the Language Police

By WILL H. CORRAL

Even my university's e-mail system is getting in on the trend toward policing language: It automatically signals me whenever I use Spanish or English words and expressions that "normal readers may find offensive," guarding my network much like a neighborhood "defense committee" in Castro's Cuba. One of the tragicomic aspects of today's language police is that it is self-anointed. Another is that its officers seem uniformly inept in their training and obstinate in their eagerness to pass their

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