OPINION

A language guide from the European Union has drawn the attention of Sky News presenter Andrew Bolt, who has expressed his deep concern that people may be discouraged from describing men as “virile” in the future.

On Monday night Bolt discussed his worries with British contributor Esther Krakue, who said the language guide was unwarranted, and also took the opportunity to thrown in a swipe at transgender women.

“One of the reasons they said to reword ‘virile’ to ‘strong’ is because virile is mainly used to describe men, although I’m pretty sure that if you told most men that their women are virile, they’d assume it’s one of those new kinds of women – with penises.” Krakue said, eliciting a stream of giggles from Bolt.

Krakue went on to say the language guide was part of “a broader scope of a takeover.”

“It’s not just about policing your language, it’s also about policing other aspects of your life. Today you can’t say ‘fireman’ and ‘firewoman’, tomorrow you can’t say things like ‘King’ and ‘Queen’.

“It all comes down to the control, and really they know this is pointless, they know most people are only going to call men virile, but thy feel the need to say to that to highlight their virtuousness and their piety.

The inclusion of the report on Australian television, follows similar moments of outrage from British presenters on conservative news channels. The language guide was first highlighted British newspaper The Telegraph, before being featured on several programs on GB News.

What most of the reports skip over though, is the report in not a new resource. As Pink News has highlighted it was first published six years ago in 2018.

Nor does it call for language to be scrapped or banned. It’s just an inclusive language guide that suggests best practice to avoid gendered or sexist terms. The kind of guide that’s found in most large businesses and media outlets.

British politicians have joined in the outrage over the six-year-old guide.

Nick Fletcher, a government MP, commented to The Telegraph calling inclusive language guide’s “nonsense”.  

“I think it’s nonsense, especially when there’s far more serious issues going on at the moment that we need to be concerned about.” the MP said.

“We’ve got wars being waged, an energy crisis and a lot of countries are dealing with the same kind of problems that we are in the UK. Things like this are a waste of our time.”

You’d think politicians and news commentators would have more serious issues to talk about than language guides that have been around for years.

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