Chinks in the Software

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's online All Politics Watch blog is very, VERY sensitive.

It is so politically correct that it considers harmless words unprintable.

It begins with this post from 620 WTMJ's Charlie Sykes' blog, "You are the Chink in Luther's Armor."

Patrick Marley, writing for the Journal Sentinel's All Politics Watch, picked up on it and posted this:

Ethanol bill creates family, political rift
By Patrick Marley
Monday, Feb 4 2008, 10:50 AM
Madison -- The announcement of State Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) that he would not vote on an ethanol bill has apparently set off his brother.

And Olsen's chief of staff, Heather Smith, now tells Olsen's brother he doesn't understand the political realities of working in the Legislature, according to an e-mail posted on Charlie Sykes's blog. Olsen and his family own a grain mill that could benefit from increased ethanol production in the state.

Smith called Olsen's brother "the *** in Luther's armor" and warned him the bill has no chance of getting through the Legislature whether Olsen voted for it or not.

The "*** in Luther's armor" should read "chink in Luther's armor."

The word "chink" in this instance is not an ethnic slur.

Charlie points out:

From the Poynter Institute website...

The word "chink" meaning a hole or fissure is unrelated to the ethnic slur, and differs from it by being printed in the lower case. It derives from a Middle English word meaning "crack," and is used prominently in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In the hilarious play-within-a-play, one rustic lover woos another through a hole in a wall: "Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall. Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eye!"

What, then, are we to say about the headline "A Chink in the Armor"? We can say, with certainty, that it is a cliché. In this case, Dr. Ink would look hard for an alternative. This quest for originality would get the Doc off the ethnic slur hook.

"A Kink in the Armor" does little to solve the problem. The variation will only recall in the reader both the original cliché and the potentially offending word.

It may be that "chink," meaning crack or fissure, is headed down the trail of "niggardly," a word that has nothing to do with the familiar racial epithet, but that has come, innocently, to carry its baggage.

The Journal Sentinel tacked on this UPDATE to its *** post:

UPDATE: Some readers have been asking, "What the **** is with the asterisks in this post?" It turns out that our blog software automatically censors curses and racial epithets, and the word was censored here even though it doesn't have racial overtones in this context. The error should be fixed soon. In the meantime, the word starts with "ch," ends with a "k" and rhymes with "link."

Ah, there's the chink.

Sure, the deletion was the result of an automatic block that kept "chink" from making it into the post.

BUT--

It's important to remember that humans determine which words to put on the "automatic block" list. Someone somewhere made the conscious decision to consider the word "chink" unprintable in ALL cases.

Damn the context, full speed political correctness ahead!

The Journal Sentinel's update explains what happened. OK.

I just wonder why no online editor noticed the word's inappropriate omission and replaced it immediately.

In short, although an error, this still is a case of political correctness run amok.

The software doesn't write itself.

The software's author/authors put "chink" on the MUST NEVER BE PRINTED list.

(Should I add an disclaimer to this post stating that I'm not using "chink" as an ethnic slur? I don't want to offend anyone.)