We’ve lost some useful, colorful words. My speech is peppered with many of those outdated words, partly because I grew up reading Carl Barks’ Duck comics. I have resisted turning my jungles into rainforests, and I still think that good things are neat and not sick. I’d like to see some of these un-modern and un-PC words come back in vogue:
Aloud. Nobody reads aloud anymore. Instead, we all read out loud. While the two terms have the same meaning, out loud is really just a lazy corruption of the perfectly good aloud. That shouldn’t be allowed. 
Jungle. Now it’s a rainforest. I’m not the first to complain about this particular neologism, but my criticism is not limited to the political correctness of the new word. To call something a jungle is to label it a tangled, dense, overgrown place, which never stopped being true of those big green areas in South America. A jungle is a useful metaphor: his room was a jungle of toys. You wouldn’t say that his room was a rainforest of toys. And why is it necessary to distinguish jungles by emphasizing that they are forests that have rain? To call something a forest of rain makes no sense. It rains in every forest, except a dead one. Yosemite might as well be a rainforest. And if rainforest is acceptable, why not snowforest or fogforest or windforest?
Keen, swell, neat. All mean that something is good or cool. Today’s slang is not all bad — like sweet — but many of our words for good have become truly vulgar: killer, kickass, and badass, for example. I hear a lot of young hockey players calling each other sick when they score amazing goals. Although one might argue that it’s just a negative word being used in a positive context, I see it as resulting from a deeper confusion about what is good, what is bad, and whether negative concepts deserve such daily notoriety. Killer should stay in jail and sick should stay in bed.
Crazy. Used to be that anyone with a mental illness was just plain crazy. I’m surprised that they’re not complaining about the term mental illness, because it makes schizophrenics, manic depressives, and neurotics seem as if they all possess non-ideal disease states — and who are we to judge what mental states are desirable, according to modern intellectuals? (Actually, I believe that craziness or mental illness or whatever they call it is over-diagnosed. Eccentric people used to be celebrated or at least tolerated, not urged to take drugs or change their behavior so we can all be the same.)
Have you noticed how crazy now sometimes means unbelievable, like when hip people call something “crazy good?” I like good things to be good and insane people to be crazy, thank you very much. (Insane… there’s another word…)
Hokum. What a neat slang word for nonsense!
Bum. Now it’s homeless, which shifts the emphasis from the disposition of the person (his bumness) to the fact that he lacks a home. The social justice activists like that because bum implies a mindset, and mindsets are an individual’s own responsibility, while homeless is a description of victimhood. So what are we supposed to call all of those low-life parasites and criminals who exist on the margins of society by their own choice — especially if they happen to have homes? Treasured voters, or some hokum like that?
Discriminate. Almost universally, the word now means to employ racial or ideological prejudice when judging people. To discriminate is merely to recognize a distinction. If the movements that campaigned against racial prejudice had complained of racial differentiation, today people might be reluctant to ever differentiate anything. And discrimination is often necessary, not just in telling one fact from another, but in judging people. No rational person would think that a person’s color or race determines his intelligence, capability, or worth as a human being, because those things are unchosen. Ideas, however, are chosen — and they are not equal. Some are true, some are false, some are beneficial, and some are destructive. What we need is to not practice discrimination on the basis of meaningless differences like race, but to absolutely, unfailingly practice discrimination when judging ideas.
Indian. I’ll admit that this term is less than ideal, because it confuses the curry-eating type with the buffalo-hunting type. (I’m sure I angered thousands with that statement alone!) The generally agreed upon replacement term, Native American, is even worse because it logically applies to everyone born in America. (That, by the way, is how I like to fill out government forms, even though I’m as white as Conan O’Brien. I was born here, so I am a Native American. Simple as that.)
Why all the fuss anyhow? Indians are mostly historical people who lived in communalistic tribes with no reason, science, or individual rights. And we’re so worried about offending them? I’m the one who is offended… offended that we think that Native American life — conformity and suffering by a campfire under the stars — represents some kind of ideal.
The Orient. I fail to see how this is offensive. It comes from a pair; you know, oriental, occidental. Oriental means facing East and Occidental means facing West. I don’t remember it becoming a slur, though, and I guess that neither do the modern day operators of the Orient Express.
Talking about the Orient and the Far East sounds so exotic. Now, it’s just Asian. Supposedly, too many outmoded feelings of prejudice became attached to the old word. It’s not the word’s fault. Asian might one day become sullied, for all we know. For the record, I don’t mind being called Occidental; so what’s wrong with Oriental?
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How about “black”? Like Indian, also less than ideal, but then again, so is white. But African American!!!! How does that translate into black? I’m one of them; an African who is now an American, but I’m white. Last year, a white student at a San Diego university, who referred to himself as African American, caused more than just a stir!
See, it’s just silly to identify oneself by the national origin of one’s ancestors. It’s all happenstance, and it puts focus on the least important element of what makes you who you are, rather than what kind of person you consciously chose to become. I don’t derive my identity from a group, so whether I’m “white” or “Northern European turned American” just does not matter to me.
Gee, I thought this post was swell.
I often think about my use of slang (the seasoning of language) regarding what sneaks in and what has fallen out of favor. I love your analysis of “bum” but you forgot to include the fact that it makes everyone under a certain age giggle. (Based on personal experience so far, I’m guessing that age is 45.)
As someone who refuses to shake the northeast colloquialism, “wicked”, but never uses “killer” or “sweet” to mean good because they seem so violent and juvenile, respectively (above disclosure notwithstanding), I have happily adopted “kickass” when combined with “chicks” (another bit of slang eschewed by the PC crowd) and boots to mean powerful and fabulous.
In other PC hokum, a swamp is now a wetland. And while it’s not slang, it’s no Occident that “judging” people and things is also out of favor. Word usage, including slang, is a decent gauge of prevailing attitudes.