Stop getting upset by language – They are just words, says ANN WIDDECOMBE
I HAVE little respect for Amber Rudd, given her conduct over Brexit - and it speaks volumes for the helplessness of the Prime Minister that Cabinet members can threaten resignation and remain in post.
Diane Abbott: Commentator defends Rudd's 'coloured' comment
Nevertheless, she does not deserve all the posturing from Diane Abbott about her use of the word "coloured" to describe people of different ethnicity. Racial nomenclature is a minefield and language changes over the years. In the 1970s "coloured" was polite and "black" was rude. Now it is the other way.
Most of us use language which is the product of our generation.
That chap in the woodpile still causes trouble for a certain age group even though none of them would ever dream of using the N-word in any other way.
When I was growing up, gay was an adjective you applied to Easter bonnets and my mother used the word in its original sense right up to her death in 2007.
A slut was a slovenly woman whose house was dirty but today it has a quite different meaning, as one of my contemporaries found out from the indignant reaction when she used it jocularly to describe her daughter's approach to ironing.
A BITCH was merely an unpleasant woman but now the term is so offensive that, unless it is being used to describe a female dog, it has to be rendered in asterisks. A glory hole was a cupboard under the stairs full of junk but, as I found out on Celebrity Big Brother, it has a somewhat less homely meaning now.
It is not just the language which has changed. Casual attitudes towards such anachronisms have morphed into outraged expostulation and Twitterstorms.
Any dictionary, of course, will still give the original meaning of words as well as their current one so when I occasionally challenge people to check on a word that I have used, they can often look surprised.
I knew the answer to the pound question provided such a biting finish to the series of Who Wants A Millionaire? Still, I wasn't in the hot because it was all other questions couldn't have managed.
I hope I am around long enough to watch them in their turn become equally baffled by change in usage.