TDSB removing ‘chief’ from job titles out of respect for Indigenous people, Oct. 11

The Toronto District School Board has fallen into the abyss of political correctness. ‘Chief’ is an English word. Its etymology goes back to well before the discovery of North America. It is not the property of Indigenous people. No linguistic group has ownership of words in other languages.

In English, the words chief, Indian and buffalo are all nouns, with a well-defined meaning, completely devoid of any subliminal insult. English and other languages have plenty of insulting words in their lexicon if they are needed.

It is the height of absurdity to imagine that the chief of a Scottish clan can no longer be called chief because it insults a person who speaks Mi’kmaq or Algonquian.

Peter Weygang, Bobcaygeon, Ont.