Sunday, December 17, 2017

More bad words

The Washington Post reports that the Centers for Disease Control is not alone in cuts to vocabulary:

A second HHS [Health and Human Services] agency received similar guidance to avoid using “entitlement,” “diversity” and “vulnerable,” according to an official who took part in a briefing earlier in the week. Participants at that agency were also told to use “Obamacare” instead of ACA, or the Affordable Care Act, and to use “exchanges” instead of “marketplaces” to describe the venues where people can purchase health insurance.

At the State Department, meanwhile, certain documents now refer to sex education as “sexual risk avoidance.”
Related reading
All OCA George Orwell posts (Pinboard)
The seven words you can’t write at the CDC

comments: 2

Frex said...

"Sexual risk avoidance"?

I don't even get it... How to make risk-avoidance sexy???

Michael Leddy said...

Yeah, I noticed that missing hyphen.

“Sexual risk avoidance” is one area where our president could make a great contribution. Recall that he described his avoidance of STDs as his “personal Vietnam.”