Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9201310371
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KILEY ARMSTRONG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
I'M PC; YOU'RE PC: A 90S GUIDE
Here's a pop quiz for the '90s:
What's your reaction to a rock video featuring scantily clad women?
(Wrong answer: "Awwwwwright!!!!")
What's your view on military women in combat:
(Wrong answer: "They just want a legal excuse to kill men.")
Social troglodytes (those who think PC might mean police car or petty cash) and even the annoyingly correct can laugh at each other - and, hopefully, at themselves - while reading "Are You PC?," a guide for the would-be politically correct.
This cheeky tome (Ten Speed Press, $5.95) lists its author as "The PC Committee." The instigator, Manhattan resident Eric Lefcowitz, claims to crave anonymity, both because committees are PC and because "I'm waiting for the stack of hate mail."
His book's handy-dandy glossary can help the almost-enlightened (those who define "PC" as "personal computer") become more idiom-abled, as in:
"Temporarily young."
"Temporarily abled" ("non-physically challenged.")
"Pre-women" (teen-age girls).
"Mixed-hand usage" (ambidexterity.)
(OK, Lefcowitz admits to making up some of this. He says he tried to find out what various factions preferred. But when "I called some bona fide places . . . they thought I was a crackpot.")
No group is spared. In fact, the book contains several blatantly bigoted "wrong answers" about the mentally and emotionally handicapped (oops, make that "challenged"), ethnic groups and sexual orientations.
"It's a book that has to address reality; it's not just a humor book," said Lefcowitz. (Zero points if you've "smiled at least once since picking up this book.")
But Lefcowitz reasons that if an Archie Bunker "does take the time to read the other answers - if he CAN read," he, or she, will be exposed to other viewpoints.
The author feels most readers will share his space: "firmly in the middle."
In public, though, "I do tend to waffle in the company of others: I try to represent the PC side," says Lefcowitz. "It's kind of scary."
There's even a multiple choice quize. Some samples:
Choose the PC-est term: Animal companion; my dog (cat, etc.); pet; laboratory bait.
Your home is infested with mice. Do you: call the ASPCA; trap them humanely; use poison; or stop feeding the cat?
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