# 121 A PLEA FOR POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

I’m not big into political correctness but if now is the time for corrections, then there are a couple of things I want corrected.

The first is the phrase, “How’s tricks?” Doesn’t this phrase refer to the profit or loss of someone engaged in the world’s oldest profession? I’ve always thought that ‘tricks’ were the currency of prostitutes. Yet it’s a phrase in such common usage that I’ve even heard it asked in the church vestibule by a man of the cloth. (shudder)

And the other word I’m thinking of today is ‘chick’. Now I’ve never called myself a ‘chick’ but if I chose to that wouldn’t bother me. And if a man calls me or other females ‘chicks’, that’s uncomfortable and unappreciated, but I can find it in my heart to forgive him even though I consider it a crude way of speaking. But when another woman, and in this case it was a co-worker that I seldom had occasion to speak to and then only on the phone, insisted on referring to me as ‘chick’ or ‘chicky’ even though she knew my name was ‘Roberta’, that drove me nuts. But in whatever context, the term is annoying and bothersome – it should be corrected.

So it seems to me, if we must revamp carols and holiday greetings and a host of other terms and references that were once part of everyday language, then I want these aggravations corrected as well. They may not be important to you, but they are to me.

And while we’re at it, if there are other words or phrases driving you nuts, why not add them to my list and we’ll get this mess cleared up all at once.

P.S. Suggestions are also welcome for modifying these terms in order to make them more politically correct.