Just when I thought all the nonsensical attempts to erase chapters of American history had stopped with statues being razed, school mascots getting kicked to the curb and streets being renamed, something even more ridiculous has erupted like a boil on a cowboy’s butt. Y’all might not’ve heard about this yet, but I tend to keep my ear to the ground, mostly due to vertigo. It seems like a few individuals in the real estate business have determined that the term “master bedroom” might be offensive to some folks.
As we literate Americans know, more than 150 years ago, there was slavery in parts of the world, and the owners of the slaves were often called “master”. So, to thwart the notion that only slaveholders could sleep in the master bedroom, this part of the house may soon be called the “primary bedroom”. It’s true. I kid you not.
Now, I don’t want to sound insensitive, but isn’t removing a particular word from our vocabulary because it has a brittle link to slavery just a tad ludicrous? I’m no lexicographer (go ahead and Google that word), but I bet “master” was an ordinary word long before Jefferson Davis was even born. But, hey, if the word is causing sensitive homeowners to toss and turn in their beds every night, let’s grab the butt-end of our #2 pencils and eliminate “master” from our gargantuan glossary.
Now, if we kick the “master” out of our bedroom, we should go the whole hog and wipe the word completely out of our dictionary. Let’s not be semi-gluteal and just erase it from real estate listings. Let’s eradicate it like we did to smallpox and slavery. If we can’t have a master bedroom, we certainly can’t have a master bathroom. Parents will have to use ordinary bathrooms, ones with no brassieres drying over the shower curtain or issues of Guns & Ammo on the back of the toilet.
We won’t have a master plan to guide us through our endeavors. I suppose we can have a mediocre plan, and hopefully we won’t screw up too badly as we go along.
So, we attend college for four or five years, depending on our beer consumption, earning a bachelors degree and then decide to further our education. We won’t be able to obtain a Masters Degree in the future. To keep from offending folks, we’ll have to call it something else, like Bachelor 2.0 Degree or a Supplemental Schooling Degree.
What’s the military gonna do if they can’t use “master” in their nomenclature? Privates will no longer shout “Sir, yes sir, Master Sergeant!” Will Sarge now be Super Sergeant? And how about the master-at-arms? What are sailors going to call this petty officer? Person-at-arms?
Can we still refer to Alfred Hitchcock as the “Master of Suspense” or rename him “One Scary Dude”? What about the rapper Master P? I wonder what he thinks of us changing his stage name to Just Another Rapper.
I reckon we will no longer have a chess master or a master of ceremonies. No more Master Chef. I have a son-in-law who considers himself a grill master. I guess from now on he’ll just be another weenie roaster.
Are there other words in our vocabulary that we should expunge? We can’t consider ourselves as rebels any more, although we can still be rebellious. We can’t wait one cotton-pickin’ minute any longer, and Aunt Jemima will be flipping pancakes under the name Pearl Milling Company. I’m sorry, but I’m a little ticked off, and I’m not just whistlin’ Dixie. Y’all can go along and let them delete history, but I will continue to visit local brew masters and keep working on my literary masterpiece.
