Uuuuugh, PETA. What buffoonery have you humourless nerds engaged in now?
The most-hated animal rights organisation on the planet is showing its arse yet again, this time with a completely useless demand that we remove “speciesism” from our language.
Ah yes, speciesism. That scourge of discrimination that so many animals have been agitating to do away with.
This particular bit of finger-wagging comes via Twitter, where the organisation has listed several terms that it has decided are “anti-animal“, along with the insipid and, in some cases, completely nonsensical substitutes they’ve come up with.
Please observe:
Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are and start ‘bringing home the bagels’ instead of the bacon.
— PETA (@peta) December 4, 2018
For the record: “take the flower by the thorns” simply does not have an analogous meaning to “take the bull by the horns“. If you’re wasting your energy trying to finger-wag us into changing legitimately harmless colloquial phrases, PETA, you could at least put more than five seconds worth of effort into coming up with suitable replacements.
Thankfully, the internet has taken it upon themselves to give the hectoring fun-puncturers a sound bollocking.
Confirmed PETA endorses animal cruelty.
— Watie Alberty IV (@WatieIV) December 5, 2018
My wife has Celiac disease and finds your “Bring home the bagels” and “Feed two birds with one scone” offensive. Not really, but this is ridiculous.
— Jeff Kleck (@JeffKleck) December 5, 2018
Maybe I’m feeding a fed horse here but I think we’ve gone too far @peta pic.twitter.com/fHCmMzFW2L
— BH (@blaizehart) December 5, 2018
— Joseph Harrison (@child_genius1) December 5, 2018
Any advice for “spank the monkey”?
— Busted Coverage (@bustedcoverage) December 5, 2018
— Nick St. Clair (@Nstclair96) December 5, 2018
Yes we need to stop animal cruelty, but stop. This is ridiculous. These aren’t remotely the same thing at ALL
— anna the good witch 𝚝𝚟 (@snowglobetay) December 5, 2018
Look, I get it: language matters. It’s why we have laws against hate speech, and why there are ongoing debates over who gets to use which slur (and whether or not you can reclaim them). But the debates over these issues exist because the people on either side of them are people, with the capacity to be offended and harmed by human language. When my dog gets shitty with me for saying something sticks out like dog’s nuts, then I’ll consider adjusting my vocabulary. Until then… no.
Also, for the record, PETA has a long track record of being garbage people, not least by comparing animal-themed phrases with racism. Plus according to some stats, PETA is responsible for killing 95% of the animals that end up in their care. Someone come up with a catchy idiom for that, please.
