Brexit and social media offence as intolerance grows – Yorkshire Post Letters

IN 2016 when we voted to leave the EU, the word “Brexit” came into being. Many jumped on the bandwagon to say it wasn’t a recognised word but, of course, it has certainly gone into the English language now.

Baroness Warsi says people have been given ‘a licence to be racist’ since Brexit referendum

Our language has always evolved as circumstances and events dictate and the new words added to our dictionaries reflect the changes in society and events surrounding us.

The increasing use of social media in our lives has possibly pushed these changes and additions at a greater pace, I’m sure many of our older readers feel completely foxed and bewildered by many of them and wonder what the world is coming to. There is one new word that has suddenly started coming into the media and our language. It is one that has me bubbling I must admit, or rather the meaning of it, and that word is ‘‘woke’’. Apparently today it means being alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice but it is often used to describe the very people who seem to be offended by anything and everything.

The days are gone when if anyone said something that offended you we were told to give back as good as you got, no, if you’re in the public eye then there are calls for you to be sacked or resign.

Does it mean we are becoming more intolerant as a society? The anger expressed on social media sites against anyone who has a different view to them can be really hurtful and nasty, a highly disturbing trend.

I just hope as we enter what could be the ‘‘roaring Twenties’’ again we start to grow up a bit and stop being so easily offended, well I can but hope!

From: John Van der Gucht, Clayton Hall Road, Cross Hills.

THREE weeks into the New Year and already there are signs of Government division over Brexit. The PM trumpets that we can have our cake and eat it. Chancellor Sajid Javid announces there will be no alignment with EU regulations or the single market and customs union, telling them they have had three years to prepare. So, goodbye to frictionless trade, and all its consequences.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson cracks the whip at the Cabinet table, hardly credible given his previous free-wheeling style. Still with his thumping majority and five years in which to mess things up, the show will go on.