OPINION: ‘Break a leg’ verboten as well
DEI bureaucrats at a British university want to avoid triggering students – so they are telling them not to say “a piece of cake.”
“[Cardiff University] has told students not to use colloquial phrases such as ‘kill two birds with one stone’ or ‘a piece of cake’ because they are ‘very British-English’ and won’t be understood by other cultures,” according to the Daily Mail. “Break a leg” should also be avoided.
The list of verba non grata comes to students via the school’s “Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion” office, as the Daily Mail reported.
As expected, “man up” and “like a girl” could also trigger Cardiff University students.
Britain’s former colony is doing no better when it comes to stirring up outrage against innocuous phrases.
The University of California Irvine’s “inclusive language guide” also warns against “kill two birds with one stone.”
Instead, say “feed two birds with one scone.” Ironically, as I believe one College Fix reader pointed out at the time, feeding a bird a scone might actually kill them, or at least make them very sick.
Other offensive words, according to UCI, are “housekeeping tasks,” “right-hand man,” “white box,” and “black box.”
From time to time, universities will also spread the myth that the term “picnic” has racist origins.
That is what happened at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, where the Environmental Law Society renamed its “picnic” event in 2023. The group called it a “Lunch by the Lake,” based on the (wrong) notion that picnics have a connection to lynching.
It is a bit scary law students do not know how to look up the meanings of words (imagine being defended by a UNLV law student who celebrates his client’s “convictions”), but the word is French in origin.
Cardiff defended its DEI module in a comment to the Daily Mail – by citing that “experts” had created it.
“Our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Awareness module was created through the collaboration of EDI experts from our institution and students,” the university said, and cited a stat that most students rated it positively.
All that statement proves is that the experts are wrong again – as they so often are.
MORE: NJ high school debunks racial slur allegations
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