Watch Your Language

Catherine Seipp makes some good observations about what is and is not acceptable language in public or on TV these days. It's really hard to argue that political correctness has not made a hash of what were once pretty straight-forward rules.

She cites many examples of TV show producers trying to steer a safe course through this maze. One such:

"I can't get away with it," responded Angel's Tim Minear, whose new show The Inside is a Silence of the Lambs-style gorefest that will premiere on Fox later this year. "Children are gutted on my show from stem to stern, but I couldn't have a serial killer say the word 'retard' because that would have been insensitive."

But the take-away is the last paragraph:

Anyway, last week I noticed a great anecdote about all this over at Reason's Hit & Run blog. A commenter wrote about a friend of his in Montana called Ray, who was pulled over by a policeman one day for having an insensitive vanity plate that read RAYTARD: "Ray offered to replace it with one that said DISRAYBLED. The officer was not amused. True story."