The word ‘map’ no longer means just a bit of cartography – it now also means ‘minor attracted person’. In other words – a paedophile. But why would anyone want to call a paedophile anything other than a paedophile? Well, it seems the person promoting this idea of dropping ‘paedophile’ and using ‘map’ instead is someone called Allyn Walker, author of A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity. Walker, a transgender person, was an academic at a Norfolk, Virginia, university who had to resign that post following a massive backlash against the book. More than 14,000 people signed a petition saying Walker should be sacked. What I find alarming is that the University of California ever decided to publish the book! Just look at the book’s title. Every sane person believes that paedophiles are not entitled to ‘dignity’ because they harm children. Walker argues that the word ‘map’ for a ‘minor-attracted person’ is less stigmatising and offensive than the word ‘paedophile’. But the rest us of think paedophiles should be stigmatised and what they do is offensive. Even more alarming is the fact that when the petition appeared demanding Walker be sacked some sixty fellow academics came to Walker’s defence. But the anti-Walker petition got it right when it said, ‘We want to be clear that this is paedophilia and should not be considered a sexual preference’. This is where the sexual revolution in our society is heading – towards normalising paedophilia. This is about the most appalling example of trying to manipulate language I have ever come across.

A word that turns up often in political commentary today is ‘ideology’. It’s been part of English since the late 1700s – with a range of different meanings. But today it seems to have settled on the one meaning it has had since 1896: ‘A systematic scheme of ideas, usually relating to politics, economics, or society.’ That’s from the Oxford. Our Macquarie says much the same in different words: ‘The body of doctrine, myth, and symbols of a social movement.’ The contrast is often between ‘politics’ on the one hand and ‘ideology’ on the other. In 1962 Bernard Crick wrote a definitive book called In Defence of Politics (which has since gone through five editions – the most recent being 2002). In that book he defends the messy, untidy, compromising and negotiating muddle of daily politics against ‘ideology’ – where there is nothing to discuss, or debate, or compromise or negotiate on because the ‘ideology’ gives all the answers and plots the whole course. ‘Ideology’ is often seen as utopian – a plan to get us to a new world which, if not quite perfect is pretty damn close. So political parties (often on the Left) who are driven by a strong ideology can believe that they are right, everyone else is wrong and there’s nothing left to talk about. The fact that someone is driven by an ideology is clear when they claim they are on ‘the right side of history’ (and, by implication, anyone who rejects their ideology is on the ‘wrong side’ of history). According to Crick, the ideologically driven leader practises a form of anti-politics in which the goal is the mobilisation of the populace towards a common end – even on pain of death.

What do you call pumpkin, broccoli, onions, beetroot, tomatoes and all the rest? If you said ‘vegetables’ – I’m sorry, but you are now wrong. They used to be vegetables, but they are now ‘plant-based food’. The change seems to be part of the relentless vegetarian propaganda with which we are bombarded daily. The expression was certainly coined by vegetarians. When ‘plant-based food’ first appeared in the English language (in 1960) it meant ‘derived or made from plants, or fungi or algae’. It still means that. But the passionate propagandist prefers to use entirely negative definitions – such as: ‘food free from animal products (including meat, fish, egg, dairy, honey)’ which sounds to me rather more vegan than vegetarian. By the way, the word ‘vegan’ (which dates from the 1940s) has always meant the most extreme form of a non-animal product diet. The problem, of course, is that there is always someone warning us how unhealthy this is. A third of vegetarians are said to suffer from a serious protein and vitamin B12 deficiency. And according to Rod Liddle those who eat nothing but ‘plant-based food’ are more likely to suffer fractures of various limbs on account of lower bone-mineral density. It’s a debate I don’t want to get into. But I do want to go on calling vegetables ‘vegetables’ (please pass the potatoes and peas).