Well, that might be a slight exaggeration...
Pretty soon I won't be able to call him Santa Claus because it might offend somebody... The safer, more PC option is to call him SC.
I believe there's a difference between editing, and censorship. There are words that can offend, and speech that is hateful. If an editor comes across something like that in print, I think it should be edited to reflect sensitivities. In my opinion, that is the right thing to do, and would be a perfect example of good editing.
Sometimes, however, editing can go too far and turn into unnecessary censorship. In our quest to not offend anybody and keep things as neutral, bland, and politically correct as possible, we end up censoring things that don't need it.
We live in a society whereby - as aptly pointed out in a recent article in The Telegraph - we are constantly "treading on egg shells in (our) desperation not to offend." This extends to such things as trivial as holidays.
At some point in recent years, we quit celebrating Christmas. In our Western society's attempt to avoid alienating non-Christians, we stopped celebrating a "Merry Christmas" (or is it "Merry Xmas" now?), and started celebrating "Happy Holidays." This, in my opinion, is an example of extreme editing, or censorship run amuck.
And there are countless examples of such attempts at keeping things PC and really aren't hard to find. We can't reverse the process, however with a bit of common sense I think it's possible to edit truly offensive things, and leave the rest alone.
I'll end this post with truly unnecessary censorship, courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel.
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