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The Bias-Free Word Finder: A Dictionary of Nondiscriminatory Language

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Just browsing through The Bias-Free Word Finder can provide an education in treating people equally without sounding terribly stilted. The author often provides several routes around a politically incorrect experssion. Some entries provide a bit of history to go along with the suggestions. Other entries also provide examples of when to use an outmoded term because it is correct for writing about a particular historical period and examples of when to use the newer exressions.

Word aficionados of all stripe should own and use this important resource. Far from banning "incorrect" words from the language, this book offers well-considered commentary on and creative solutions to sociolinguistic puzzles that concern every member of society--from the male-only draft to the cultural forces behind nonparallel terms like showman/showgirl. The opening essay is a powerful, must-read argument for good writing, which, in the words of Strunk and White, is "specific, definite, and concrete." My only request to the author for the next edition is that she continue to expand her cache of synonyms, update her discussion of sexuality in the media, and update her information on biological sex and gender.

This book contains a list of 5,000 words that you are not supposed to say because they might hurt someone's feelings. Like referring to a "bull session" (male-dominated) or "Jekyll & Hyde" or "David and Goliath." Ms. Maggio, if left to her own devices, would impose a master (oops, sexist) code of censorship and political correctness and impoverish our language.