It Is Good To Plan Ahead,

and Greenwich Council certainly are,

with just 236 days to Christmas, Greenwich Council has issued a new language guide to its staff, the booklet suggests that staff omit the word ‘family’ when sending Christmas greetings so as not to offend those who have no relatives, staff are also being urged to avoid referring to ‘the young’ or ‘youngsters’ in favour of ‘young persons or young adults’, and not to describe those who are pregnant as either women or expectant mothers, the suggestions feature in an inclusivity guide, Language Matters, going back to Christmas a phrase such as ‘Sending our best wishes to you and your family this Christmas time’ should be replaced by ‘Sending you our best wishes this Christmas time, however you’re spending it’, that sounds sort of cold, but there it is, the guide also recommends avoiding phrases such as ‘women who are pregnant’ and ‘expectant mothers’ and to instead use gender-neutral phrases like ‘people who are pregnant’ and ‘expectant parents’, Greenwich council said: ‘Our inclusive language guide is advisory only and was designed to encourage staff to reflect on the use of language in the workplace and how it might impact their colleagues.’ all I can say is if it was not broke why fix it? but then I am a little old fashioned, still it must be nice for the ratepayers of Greenwich to know that their rates are being spent so wisely.