Political correctness is often ridiculed, the idea that people are so fragile they need to be wrapped in cotton wool, protected from painful words. But the sort of people who decry it are usually the ones throwing out the sharpest barbs. To me, political correctness is just kindness by another name. And, please, do explain to me quite what the harm is in being correct? It is not rebellious or anti-establishment to cause offence instead of referring to a person by the pronoun they have chosen; to defer to someone’s own preferences and experiences when discussing ethnicity, race or gender. You might not get it right every time, but I promise to correct you as kindly as possible. Just don’t ask me where I’m ‘really’ from.