Senior. That great word. At long last, I am in my (hopefully) final year at NIU.

You know, four years ago, when I was a freshman, things seemed so much simpler.

The politically correct (PC) movement was virtually unheard of in DeKalb.

There was no such thing as the politically correct English paper, and nobody got mad at you for calling the mailman the mailman, no matter if it was a man or a woman.

Some universities this year have taken the concept so far as to stop using the term “freshman,” and replace it with the term of “first-year student.”

The students at that particular university considered the word “freshman” to be too gender sensitive, so they convinced the school to change it.

Even NASA is getting into the PC act. They are no longer allowed to use the term “manned” spaceflight. Instead they are required to use “crewed” or “habitated” spaceflight.

The whole situation has become totally ridiculous.

The PC supporters argue that they only want to make sure no one is discriminated against, and that everyone is pleased.

Unfortunately, all they are succeeding in really doing is displeasing (and confusing) everybody.

PC is alive and well at NIU, although not (yet) to the extent of turning all freshmen into “first-year students.”

The Freshman English program is where all the current PC action is taking place.

The program “encourages” students to be politically correct in their papers.

They want students to be non-gender exclusive such as using “postal carrier” instead of “mailman,” and “airline attendant” instead of “stewardess.”

They claim that this will teach the students how language is used in the “real world.”

If PC language is the way people talk in the real world, I’ve been living somewhere else for the last 22 years.

I hope they don’t go as far as giving lower grades for non-PC papers.

However, I’ve come up with a few politically correct terms that might come in handy at NIU.

‘Monetarily challenged—every student at NIU after those whopping tuition hikes.

‘Morally challenged—The administration who approved those tuition hikes.

‘Scholastically deprived—Everyone on campus who was closed out of those classes they needed to graduate this year.

Now I agree, language that is deliberately discriminating or offensive does not belong in society. With the way the PC movement is heading, even everyday language that I never thought twice about is coming under fire.

For everyone’s sake, I hope that the PC movement turns out to just be a flash-in-the-pan fad that passes just as quickly as bell bottoms and leisure suits.

As the emotionally distressed, chronologically gifted male (grumpy old man) said, “When I was young, people said offending things to us all the time, and we liked it.”