Ron, You're right. I'm being irresponsible. I haven't read "The Bell Curve", but am basing my claims on secondary sources. I fortuitously came across a reference to political correctness and language just now. It sums up objections to so-called politically correct language nicely: “What many people dislike, specifically, is the politicizing of their words against their will ... Choice has altered the value of the terms and removed the option of political neutrality.” This is from Deborah Cameron's excellent book "Verbal Hygiene" (notice the lack of comma before the title here; not needed). The book also has a chapter on grammatical correctness as a form of verbal hygiene, verbal hygiene being ways that language has to be controlled to serve the interests of one or another group. Dr. Johanna Rubba, Ph. D. Associate Professor, Linguistics Linguistics Minor Advisor English Dept. Cal Poly State University San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 Ofc. tel. : 805-756-2184 Dept. tel.: 805-756-2596 Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 E-mail: [log in to unmask] URL: cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/