Is Political Correctness a waste of time?

"They" or "them" or "their" are appropriate when you do not know the gender or are refering to people in general. "Whenever surgeons operate, they risk being sued for malpractice." I know it sounds funny, but it is also appropriate to use "they" or "them" or "their" when refering to one person if you do not know their gender. "Whenever a surgeon operates, they risk being sued for malpractice."

It used to be acceptable, and it still is, to use the masculine when refering to an unknown gender, or you could alternate between masculine & feminine, but I would just use the plural(general). It is grammatically acceptable and cannot possibly offend anyone...unless they are simply looking for an excuse to be offended :)

In that sense, PC is a waste of time, because there will always be someone with a chip on their shoulder, on the look-out for the next offensive word to cry about! Don't sweat them too much.

Some political correctness is a waste of time. People do get needlessly hysterical about it, and go way overboard.

I probably would have just said, "Whenever a surgeon goes to operate, they risk being sued for malpractice."

I'm a woman in a male-dominated field, and I wouldn't be offended if someone just said "he". Now if someone had MET me and KNEW I was a woman, then referred to me that way, I would be very upset.

Political correctness is not always a waste of time - it's always good to make an effort not to offend people. But when it gets to the point that you can't say ANYTHING without someone being offended, that's when people stop trying.

btw...."they" is considered gramatically incorrect if you're only speaking of one person. But if you're speaking of all surgeons as a group, it's acceptable

Technically it could be 'wrong' - 'deviating from truth or fact' - you may say the surgeon is he when she is female, or 'not recommended practice' but I'm just being nit picky here in terms of the definition of 'wrong'. Oh, yeah, that's what PCness is all about - nit picking.

Political correctness is only important if you want to keep PC people happy. But you never know who they are in large crowds (or how many there are) so you should probably be PC when public speaking unless you want those people to focus on your lack of PCness rather than what you're actually trying to put across.

I don't think it's important but in the United States where there are tons of special interest groups, they'd have a field day over this question.

You can't even say "Achilles heel" without the Friends of Achilles Association wanting to harass you for picking on his weak spot.

I know....I am just here to bully Achilles...so bring on those thumbs down!

Why not use "they" instead?

I don't think that sentence is a matter of political correctness, but rather of proper grammar.

Some times speeches, letters, papers, etc. can get too wordy. You want to captivate your audience, not bore it or offend it...so try to cut out extraneous things that are repetitive or monotonous.

Personally most people would not be offended I don't think..

you could use "ONE"

as in "Whenever one performs surgery one risks ......"