I recently sang Dick Darby at a participant night at fiddletunes and I didnt give it much thought until I was in the middle of the tune and wondered how people will react to some of the lyrics.

ie. .. my wife she is humpy, she bumpy my wife is the devil, shes black, and no matter what I may do with her her tongue it goes clickety clack

... or I dipped her 3 times in the river and carelessly bade her good day.

now the audience was appreciative and I got a good round of applause but I couldnt help but wonder if the song may have been a little UnPC for them. Now I just like the song and I like Tommy Makems rendition of it, it just wouldnt do to change it and it would be a loss not to perform it and it certainly in no way implies that the performer espouses spousal abuse. Just because you sing it doesnt mean you feel that way. (I suppose I should have made an introductory comment before singing the tune = but I dont even think thats necessary.)

I realize the origins of the political correctnes thing and I certainly agree that its not fair that Mr. does not indicate marital status whereas Mrs. Miss does so Im certainly in favour of Ms. and similar words that are exclusive of women and that ought to change. On the other hand it can go to some stupid extremes. ie. the person that edited some text (that said the Russian writer Pushkin had black ancestors) changed black to African American!

it happened to me personally, I few years ago I entered a particular sculpture in an art exhibit and since we were requested to do a little writeup. now my piece was cast iron (about 15inches): a bone (femur) at one end and highly polished wrench on the other end. The theme I am interested in is "Man and Nature" the organizer of the show called me up and she managed to convince me to edit my statement and I went along with it. But in the end Man and Nature was changed to Humanity and Nature (which to me even though its PC has a different meaning) and other elements were changed too such as Western Civilization was changed to Civilization. Now all these changes were made rather hurriedly over the phone at work but after the catalogue was printed and the show was over and successful for me (my piece went on to the provincial show and received an honourable mention) I felt that my statement was completely altered because some idiot felt it wasnt pc. .. oh yeah, and unidentified guest go fuck yourself.