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December 25, 2005

BP is not PC for BC, or what happens when Tory MPs don't check their facts

Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley in West Yorkshire is challenging political correctness, which he calls ‘this silliness’.

His first target appears to be a Somerset museum. He told the BBC. “Somebody decided that BC - Before Christ - was going to be offensive to other religions, so they changed BC to BP, which was Before the Present, I think it stood for. Examples like this happen all the time and we’d like to try and make people aware of it so they can fight back and say to people, we’ve had enough of this nonsense.”

Hmm. Doesn’t Mr Davies know how to google? If he had searched for the term on the net he would have found that BP is a standard way referring to dates in the past, associated in particular with carbon dating. It has nothing to do with political correctness and dates back more than half a century.

What would be really silly - Mr Davies and other Tory MPs please note - would be to refer to early hominids, say the celebrated Australopithecus afarensis called ‘Lucy’, as being 3.2 million years BC. (Christ really has nothing to do with it.)

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4558668.stm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present

Posted by Simon Holledge at December 25, 2005 09:33 PM

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Comments

And he had so many excellent examples of language strangulation to choose from instead!

It's not promising for people seeking signs of competence in the Tory leadership, is it?

Posted by: Mark Gamon at December 27, 2005 05:49 PM

YAY!!!! I managed a comment!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Mark Gamon at December 27, 2005 05:50 PM

That's great. I must have succeeded in getting you listed as a commenter!

Posted by: Simon Holledge at December 27, 2005 06:36 PM

its a good point. in religion is secular from politics, and diversity rules, then why not change BC also.

Posted by: jamal at January 15, 2006 09:36 PM