Inspired by school room alphabet pictures and … well, political correctness, these are great fun.
My wife is a teacher of young children, and I’ve spent a fair time of late sitting on undersized chairs admiring the alphabet charts on classroom walls. Typically ‘A’ will stand for Apple, ‘B’ for Ball. It occurred to me that ‘I’ for Indian, one I remember from my childhood, has been replaced as it is no longer politically correct to refer to native/first/indigenous Americans as Indians.
Lacking any tact or decency, I therefore determined to create an alphabet using only subjects that, while they might have been unremarked a few decades ago, are now outside acceptable usage. But only just. And then it was my intention to illustrate these in a ‘modern’ style, something along the lines of Dick Bruna’s Miffy (OK, Miffy is 50, but still looks fresh). You can see those I’ve completed already on this page.
[…] Sometimes it’s subtle: ‘Lion’ looks OK at first glance, but remember animals in circuses are a PC no-no. Sometimes it’s very subtle: ‘Boy’ makes no sense unless compared with ‘Girl’. Sometimes it’s arguable: ‘Skeleton’ has sound educational value, and is just a little scary, not unPC. And sometimes it’s just because I wanted to draw the picture.
The original purpose has in fact drifted a bit. Sometimes it’s because “improper” colloquialisms have added new meanings to some of the terms (“R is for Rubber”), sometimes it’s the picture used (as in “F is for Flag”). I’m not sure that “B is for Bomb” would ever have been acceptable. But “H is for Hunter” would almost certainly be right out these days, even if it once would have been allowed, along with “D is for Dwarf” and “P is for Pipe” and “A is for Angel” and “F is for Fur” and, well, “M is for Manhole”
(for a variety of reasons).
Some very fun stuff. It would be amusing to put these up in a classroom before Parent-Teacher Night and see how long it took before (a) someone had a heart attack, or (b) they broke out the torches and pitchforks.
(via GeekPress)