The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.

First off, how does a 'symbolic citywide ban' work? Does its symbolic status mean it creates an unpunishable offense? Or that it's just not going to be enforced? And furthermore, bitch has got to be the least offensive derogation in modern English, second only to something like 'dork'.

The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.

Ten rappers were cited in the legislation, along with an excerpt from an 1811 dictionary that defined the word as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman.”

Oh I get it now, she was using a 200-year-old dictionary when she developed this ridiculous, boondoggle-of-an-excuse for legislation. Sister, in the past two hundred years 'the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman' has come quite a long way. You may want to take this waste of taxpayers' money back to the drawing board, and try to target words like cunt, whore, jizz dumpster, or cum guzzling gutterslut.

I'm just saying, if you're going to throw time and money at a 'symbolic' gesture to restrain free speech, at least go after words that might get a modicum of support based on their shock value.

As she circulated her proposal, she said, “even council members are saying that they use it to their wives.”

And probably a certain one of their fellow counsel members...bitch.

The thing that really got me was that this woman gets a salary composed, I'd assume, of tax dollars. On the outside chance she doesn't get a tax funded salary, I'd imagine her office space and supplies are composed of tax dollars. Which, in either case, means she's spending someone else's hard earned money on a 'symbolic' project.

Personally, I thought it was a revolutionary way to look at work and compensation; so I tried to implement the tactic in my own workplace. In my weekly meeting with my VP, I told her I'd have to hand off some of my current tasks in order to work on a symbolic project for the organization. She said she applauded my symbolic initiative, and gave her full support of my pursuit of symbolic improvement for our division; as long as I was willing to accept a symbolic paycheck. Did you guys know that they actually make symbolic money? They call them foodstamps, but you can actually get real food for them! What a deal!