I’m offended, you’re offended, let’s get over it already

Oh brother.

Well, I mean, “Oh gender-neutral sibling.”

Looks like the dogooders in New Jersey’s legislature are at it again, futzing around with the language so as not to offend anyone.

According to a NJ101.5 article, legislators are seeking to replace the words “alien” and “illegal alien” with “foreign national” and “undocumented foreign national.” I suppose this isn’t so terrible, as calling a human being an “alien” does seem a little silly. I can take it or leave it.

But the other word they want to change … oh man. (Er, I mean “oh person.”)

They want to strike the word “inmate” from official use and change it to — wait for it — “person” or “person who is incarcerated.” This one is just dumb, as “inmate” isn’t offensive in the slightest bit. It comes from 15th century English, meaning literally “a person who shares a house.” You know. An inn mate. If anything, “inmate” is nicer than “person who is incarcerated.”

Of course, why stop here? There are plenty of other words in the criminal justice vernacular that could use some spiffing up. For your consideration I therefore present … (Do I need a trigger warning here?)

MURDERERS »

Life Counterbalancers.

RAPISTS » Reverse Consensual Sexual Partners.

ROBBERS » Goods and Services Extractors.

See? Not offensive in the least. And, heck, allow me to ask (again): Why stop here? There’s plenty of horribly offensive and/ or not inclusive words that aren’t part of the criminal justice system but are used in our everyday language. For instance …

THE SHORE » Can certainly be offensive to more inland-based areas of the state, as they lack sand and ocean. Henceforth, the Jersey Shore will now be known as The Outer Rim of New Jersey.

PORK ROLL/TAYLOR HAM » Oy vey. First off, as a Jew, we need to ditch the references to pork. So let’s go with non-kosher meat roll and Taylor non-kosher meat. Of course, this is going to be highly offensive to vegetarians, so let’s change it to non-kosher animal-based protein product roll and Taylor non-kosher animal-based protein product. Alas, the idea of a “roll” is going to trigger people who are glutenfree, so “pork roll” will now be known as “non-kosher animalbased protein product circle.”

So if you’re in central or south Jersey, you’d order a “non-kosher animal-based protein product circle, egg, and cheese on a hard roll” and nope, that’s not going to work either, is it?

Obviously, eggs are gender neutral, and cheese is going to trigger the lactose intolerant among us, and the word “hard” conjures up images of hard things that can cause ouchies, and we’ve already talked about roll, so … “May I have a non-kosher animal-based protein product circle, gender-neutral egg, lactose-mindful cheese on a non-dangerous gluten sphere saltpepperketchup please?”

THE BOSS » I mean, who among us doesn’t get a little worked up when thinking about our bosses at work? And really, the etymology of this is complicated, as it comes from the Dutch word for “master” — “baas” — and the reason it gained popularity in America is because — obviously — “master” has some truly terrible connotations, so clearly, Bruce Springsteen needs to tone down his nickname. Perhaps “The Manager?”

And of course there is the …

JERSEY DEVIL » Maybe we just go with the Jersey Gender-Neutral Supernatural Being and call it a day.