Let us be rude, or we’ll all go to Hell in a handbasket

We were all told, when we were young, to turn a deaf ear to those who called us names. But it turns out that our teachers and parents were wrong: words do appear to hurt after all. And especially – in modern society, at least – when those words are in the form of a metaphor.

An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters might be able to write the complete works of William Shakespeare but the Bard himself, a devotee of the colourful metaphor, would struggle to be able to write a single sonnet in these politically correct times.

This humble literary device is now deemed so toxic and dangerous that its use is pretty much the moral equivalent of a war crime. So when Boris Johnson describes burka-clad women as letterboxes or bank robbers, or he portrays the Prime Minister’s Brexit negotiating stance as wrapping a “suicide vest” around Britain, in the eyes of the perpetually offended brigade, he may as well have walked into a crowded building and detonated a deadly bomb himself.

It’s not just Boris who has fallen foul of the wordplay police this week. Jeremy Corbyn devotee Owen Jones and the Shadow Chancellor John Mcdonnell both needed smelling salts after the Labour MP Chuka Umunna entreated Corbyn to “call off the dogs” and end the purge of moderate Labour MPS from the party. Jones and Mcdonnell lamented how awful it was that Umunna had called them “dogs” – despite both having happily used the term themselves in recent years.

All this faux outrage is just laughable. Did anyone think Umunna was really calling people “dogs”? Or that Johnson honestly thinks Theresa May is an actual terrorist? Or that burka-clad women are routinely robbing banks? Of course not.

This is indeed playground territory. The whole point of a metaphor is that it is not literally applicable. And the whole point of those screaming “You can’t say that! I find it offensive!” is to bully people who don’t agree with them into falling silent.

Taking offence is now our national pastime and metaphors are merely the latest offensive weapon identified by social justice warriors as being so menacing that they must be censored for our own good.

When did we all become so fragile that mere metaphors could turn us all into fainting flowers? When did we stop being allowed to take the mickey, to poke fun at, and, yes, be a bit rude and cruel about things we don’t like? Whatever happened to – as the comedian Rowan Atkinson put it – our “right to offend”?

Do any of these storms in a social media teacup really matter? Well, yes, worryingly they do, because they have already changed how people behave, talk and even think in the real world. Only yesterday, South Yorkshire police posted a tweet saying: “In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing.” Since when did 999 get re-named the Hurt Feelings Hotline?

If we carry on like this, eventually we won’t be allowed to say anything at all. We are, as the saying goes, heading to Hell in a handbasket. But not LITERALLY, of course…