trivial as the liberal theorists would have us believe, it would be difficult to
understand their resistance to reform and the thousands of pages of print that
they have produced to shield those who engage in such language.

Issues of racism and sexism in language are not simply matters of political
correctness; they are, however, deeply political and, like the concepts of intelli-
gence and knowledge, will go a long way toward determining the allocation
of privilege, dignity, and even human worth. Those who have traditionally
defined such concepts have wielded an enormous power, for we all have a
stake in which particular definitions gain acceptance as correct. If we want,
like Charles Sanders Peirce ( 1931-1958), to insist that scholarship "not block
the way of inquiry" (p. 56, vol. 1, paragraph 1. 135) on such important issues,
we must begin by not reducing them to matters of etiquette, but by acknowl-
edging their profound impact on all of us.

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