Are, what joyous nonsense.

Then again, I'm an Anglo Saxon Male so I would think that.

KENAT,

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Definition of Politically Correct..."The missaprehension that it is possible to pick up a t^&d by the clean end!"  

Mark Hutton


 

I suppose that T^&D is "turd".  Why can't we say a word that denotes a mass that everyone sees most every day?

David

On the other hand...

I was pleased to notice recently that the Beeb's commentators have stopped calling female athletes "girls".

- Steve

Commentator Eddie Waring: "Ai, She's a big girl."

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

surprised they didn't pick on "tarred with the same brush" ... loaded with PiC nuance but not racist.

What's wrong with girls for goodness sake.  Do they still say boys or is that not PC.

Let's hope that don't decide you can't call the backs in rugby girls.

KENAT,

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That's ridiculous...

People are morons. And many times, people hold positions of power and influence. Ergo, the phrase "right hand man" is banned by morons in power.

What will manholes be called?

I'm fairly PC myself but that's just stupid.  Not every occasion of dark vs. light has to do with skin color.  Most of those expressions come from the notion that sunlight is a good thing and lack thereof is frightening, so light/dark became a metaphor for good/bad.

@KENAT:  That's the problem.  A lot of the time people will say "girls" where they wouldn't say "boys", they'd say "men".  And that, me boy, is sexist.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies:  FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

"Manhole cover" == "Personnel access flange"

Which I think sounds more racey anyway.

- Steve

I used to scoff at the "manhole" type issue, but came around.  Turns out that use of sex-specific language really does influence people's attitudes, and there's research data to back that up.

I still say "manhole" for lack of a ridiculous alternative, but prefer "chair" to "chairman", and often avoid sex-specific language when I can.  For the most part, it's not hard, and can be done without sounding silly.

Hg

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I'm pretty sure I've heard 'boys' used in sports commentating.

Like I said though, being an Anglo Saxon Male I'm probably not going to relate to the offensiveness of some of these terms.

On a lot of this stuff maybe the way things are ain't quite right/fair but I can't help thinking there are bigger things to worry about.  Then again, I'm sure that some 'research' somewhere will show that those 'bigger things' have their roots in the discrimination inherant in the English Language or some such twoddle.

Oh, and what happens in languages like French & Spanish where lots of things are inherently male or female?  Are we going to make them re-write their grammar books to make everything gender neutral?

KENAT,

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I like the overall message that any phrase using white or black as suggestions of good or bad must be banned because it could be suggestive of skin color.

So what will the financial world do, when we extend that to cover 'in the red' and 'in the black' as offensive.

What about traffic lights?  Isn't red = stop racist simply by suggestion?

 

With French or Spanish, there's nothing that can be done.  With English, there is a choice.  And the choice to use a sex-specific term when a neutral one is available does send a message.  No one can force you to care whether you're sending the message, but the message is there.

On another subthread, perhaps in the UK/Commonwealth sports commentators talk about "boys".  In the US, I've never heard "boys" used for athletes past high school age.  I'm fine with "girls" used in the same context as "boys".  It's when it's "girls" and "men" that I start to grit my teeth.  (Except in Olympic gymnastics; then I'm gritting my teeth for other reasons.)

Hg

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So we have a double standard, one for English and another for other languages?

Sounds fair.

KENAT,

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If you want to start getting silly KENAT, consider "das Mädchen" in German.

I'm with HgTX.  Calling athletes "girls" is insulting.

- Steve

hokie66,

   A few years ago, Atlantic Magazine asked P.J. O'Rourke to review a manual on political correctness.  I found it here, in PDF format.

   Enjoy!

               JHG

I find it frustrating that "-man" is always seen as sexist, when that was not the original meaning of the term.
From http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=man
man (n.)
O.E. man, mann "human being, person," from P.Gmc. *manwaz (cf. O.S., O.H.G. man, Ger. Mann, O.N. maðr, Goth. manna "man"), from PIE base *man- (cf. Skt. manuh, Avestan manu-, O.C.S. mozi, Rus. muzh "man, male"). Sometimes connected to root *men- "to think" (see mind), which would make the ground sense of man "one who has intelligence," but not all linguists accept this. Plural men (Ger. Männer) shows effects of i-mutation. Sense of "adult male" is late (c.1000);  

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

It isn't the words, it is the attitudes behind them.
Give two people a word and tell one to use it as a pejorative and the other to use it as a non-pejorative and see what happens.

Thus if you take your average bigot and condition him to use only approved terms and I'll bet anything you like he can still manage to offend those he/she/it wishes to offend.
Then again, there are some people who will be offended by just about anything you say or do or what words you use.

The presumption is that prejudice is in the words and not the person.

All this effort is a distraction and may ultimately do more harm than good because it doesn't address the problem.




 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

So now mankind does not include women, boys, and girls?
Neil Armstrong may have to go back to moon and rephrase his sentence!

Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com

"And the new World champions are ..."

"In the girls' race, America are looking good"

- Steve

The problem with all this as I see it is we all end up walking around on egg shells, frightened to say or do the wrong thing, even if nothing bad is intended.

Take jmw post above he says "Thus if you take your average bigot and condition him to use only approved terms and I'll bet anything you like he can still manage to offend those he/she/it wishes to offend." Surely the condition him should read condition them as the condition him is in itself sexist, although I am sure that was not his or should that be their intention.

The boys and girls debate is interesting, if you listen to post match interviews in sport at least in the UK the person will often say something like the boys/ girls put up a great performance as a positive thing, but a one sided match will also be described as men against boys. I live about 50 miles from London and the term boy is one that denotes a friend, much like mate or buddy, but travel to London and it is a put down.

Racism is even deeper, Paki is seen as a derogatory term but Aussie or Pomme a friendly one, how is that?

Whilst I don't agree with any form of discrimination, I am not sure having to think about every phrase you use is the way forward either.
 

"It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought...should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words."

The idea of politically correct speech is essentially the same as Orwell's dystopic view. According to PC advocates, defusing linguistic triggers helps social stereotypes on their way out. In other words, if you stop calling black people n@#$#^%$&^ or gay people f&^$^#, then the societal view towards the subject at hand (sex, religion, race, age, disability, etc.) will change.

Traditionally, when society changes language follows suit. What PC is trying to do in today's society is the opposite: use language to change the way society thinks. I don't really have a problem with some of the tenets of PC. I'm pretty sure it's not appropriate to tell racist jokes during a Power Point presentation at work, or during a press conference. I understand that neutering of some words like chairman, postman, policeman, and the like are part of addressing how society has already changed, but we shouldn't be calling the boogeyman the bogeyperson in order to force change on our imaginary demons.

The bottom line is that people either want to control the way we speak as a route to control how we think or they are looking for a way to cover up their past history of sins.  Either way no problems will ever be solved.

"The destruction of words is a beautiful thing." Geoege Orwell, 1984

Dan

www.eltronresearch.com
Dan's Blog

Poor enineers, all those male and female connections to be renamed and framers who will have to think up new terms for "cripples", the short studs under a window - height challenged studs?
If I read it right, we are also not allowed to refer to standard or normal because it implies a lack of non-standard or non-normal characteristics which is somehow either elitist or it is again offending those who are not normal.
On the plus side, Supermarkets are thus discriminating when they mark out the parking bays as Mother and child (never father and child - look at the icons) and wheelchair users, except wheelchairs are used to describe anyone who has some kind of disability sticker... except you can't call it disability either.
I say plus side because they will have to mark all parking bays in a non-discriminatory manner and I wont have to drive around for hours looking for a bay that the wife is prepared to accept as being close enough for her to walk.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I don't know how long it will take, but I'm convinced that historians will look back at this period of PC as absolutely unbelievable and very comical. Oh, what's PC this week for "dark ages"?

Light obscured ages

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Calling girls, 'girls' in any capacity isn't wrong. And it seems to be a term subject to some interpretation. A lot of older folk refer to younger people, even people in their 30's, as kids.

A sports commentator, maybe in his 50's using the word girls is not a slight of any kind. The real problem is with the people taking offense here I think.

People have become so ridiculous... Spend your time thinking about something that matters for a change.

Of course, if you call me 'boy' I'm going to have to crack some skulls. :p

KENAT--absolutely.  Languages that are structured differently have different issues.  Choosing gender-specific language when neutral is available carries a different implication from using the only alternative available.

"The contractor shall instruct his workers," to me, definitely carries the notion that the contractor is assumed to be male.

And etymology only goes so far.  "Man" may have been gender-neutral at one time, but it hasn't been for quite a while.  If I say, "Hey, look at that man!" no one is going to imagine that maybe the person I'm pointing at is the lady with the fruit on her hat rather than the guy next to her.

I'm not a big fan of language mandates (though I suppose any house style sheet is by definition a language mandate, even if the subject matter is merely the Oxford comma).  I am a fan of encouraging people to try to be more neutral in their word choice and not automatically go for the knee-jerk "how dare they tell me what to say" response.

Hg

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If I say, "Hey, look at that man!" no one is going to imagine that maybe the person I'm pointing at is the lady with the fruit on her hat rather than the guy next to her.

----------------

That's because what you meant to say was, "Hey, look at that, man!"

Rather than "language mandates" I think "Language Inquisition" is more appropriate  

My wife likes to be called a girl.

Language funnies...

When working in the USA, a former colleague said that his GF was "still in school".  I nearly hit him.

- Steve

Hg, shouldn't that be "persondates".

M

--
Dr Michael F Platten

Whatever happened to Sheilas?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

Which ones?

PC in Oz is probably taken to mean something like Pommie Cricketers or something derogatory, so I guess Sheilas would have to be still current, along with all those other charming endearments like "bush hog" and "glamour maggot".

Somehow, OZ is not somewhere where I see PC being something they are overly concious of or concerned about (stereotypically speaking)..... but perhaps our Antipodean colleagues will enlighten us, I will be entertained to discover some form of sensitivity for the finer feelings of others and especially the female of the species.

To be sure, the land of Oz was not happy with Gordon Ramsey's comments about one of their lady journos, but that may have been more to do with his being a pommie chef trespassing on the rights of the locals.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Every Aussie bloke is a gentleman compared to Ramsay.  There are some sensitive types here, but the rest of us are trying our best to stymie them.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this HgTX.

On the girls thing, do the female athletes not have 'girls nights out', or if American have 'girlfriends'?  (Say American 'cause this term isn't used as much back in Blight, the only ladies with 'girlfriends' were usually the ones in sensible shoes.)

Or is this like some of the racist language issues.  People within the ethnic group can use the terms about each other but if someone from outside the group uses it then it's racist?

Always smarted of a double standard to me.  Then again perhaps only Anglo Saxon Males have double standards or something.

KENAT,

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I had a lot to say then thought better of it.
I'll just say that PC is often counter productive and based on false premises.
One, that being PC means you don't treat people differently because of their race, colour sex or whatever when patently you do and it is a false image.
Second, that PC solves anything. I doubt it.
I'd like it to be a rule that unless there is incontravertable proof to the contrary, anything anyone says should be assumed to be unintentional and no pejorative meaning read into it.
In many cases I'd say that our differences are what set us apart and in our own eyes we need to be different and proud of it, but not [i]better]/i], just different (unless incontrovertible proof etc.)

Frankly if I landed on Mars and lots of three legged greenies ignored the hell out of my appearance I'd be pissed. I might suspect they think I am inferior and just don't want to upset me. A few "do you have to lie down to sleep with only two legs?" questions would be welcome.

By the way, I don't get uptight if people around me bang on about fat and only my wife actually says am fat. I'd damn sure be upset amongst a bunch of skinny people not saying anything consciously.

P O'Brian says we spend our lives looking for our real identity and it is always somewhere between our view of ourselves and other peoples views of us and that changes with the company. I don't want a lot of clutter imposed that interferes with either my view of me and some one esle's view of me and visa versa.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I think that PC language does very little to change things.  The real source of feelings lies in the underlying attitude not in outward language.  In some cases, PC language may actually do harm since it may come off as condescending or patronizing.
 

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

This is the kind of thing that happens when people have nothing of any particular value to do, and other peoples' money to do it with:)

Regards,

Mike

If you want to know how to create sex discrimination let the British government get involved.

Maternity leave in the UK now dictates that anyone having a child can choose to have up to 52 weeks off, during this time you as an employer have to pay them. The exact amount is a fairly complicated and will have probably changed twice by the time I have finished typing this, so I won't go into that. They also are entitled to accrue holidays so the real time off can be over 57 weeks. During this period of time anything they are entitled to also continues, so say they have a company car, fuel card, mobile phone, laptop etc you still have to provide this.

Once this period is over (with I think 8 weeks notice) they can decide if they want to return to work and if so how many hours they want to work and when they want to work them and by law you have to comply. As far as I am aware there is nothing to stop them getting pregnant again during this time and repeating the whole process over again.

Now whilst this might work fine in some government run organisation to your average small business owner this could ruin your business and is totally impractical.

So there you go, you can take a perfectly reasonable person, who actually strongly believes in equal opportunities and put them in a position where they cannot employee any female of child bearing age.

Magic isn't it?
 

• http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858787&topic

jmw wrote;
'If I read it right, we are also not allowed to refer to standard or normal because it implies a lack of non-standard or non-normal characteristics which is somehow either elitist or it is again offending those who are not normal.'

This is perhaps the only point I would argue with you, insofar as, what is normal when applied to human beings? It's similar to saying the 'average' person, who the heck are they? And, frankly, would I really want to have a beer with them?

Is it those characteristics and actions that apply to you? Which means I'm not 'normal'. Those that apply to me? Which means you're not normal. Or those that apply to more than 50% of the population, which currently makes anyone who sits down to pee 'abnormal' when based on worldwide population as a whole, but suddenly very 'normal' when considering only the over 65s.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio).

It appears that a great many (otherwise happy) people in this world spend too much valuable time worrying about whether their, their partner's or their friends words and actions are 'normal'.

That's one word I would strike from the dictionary, or more accurately, one definition.
 

If I may say so, that plan for maternity leave is discriminatory, as it applies to pregnant employees.  What about adoptive parents?

Yes of course it is TenPenny, just as it is that the father has fewer rights compared to the mother on the grounds of sexual discrimination.

But the real problem with all of this is it starts out as something perfectly reasonable and then someone has to see how far they can stretch it before it breaks.
 

Last year my company "awarded" a female employee 6 weeks of paid leave for her maternity leave.  Six months prior to the even same sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts.  I asked for paternity leave and was told that I was only entitled to my accrued vacation time.  When I produced ample evidence that this would be discrimination the company changed their ruling on the female employee and told her that her time was muted and she was entitled to the state mandatory 8 weeks of unpaid leave.  Of course the company stated that this was changed due to "other complaining about her time off paid".  Immediately I was the bad egg and someone had to explain to the female employee that it's not my fault that HR screwed up and didn't research properly.  Eventually she spoke to me again.
I simply asked for a fair and level playing field and was considered an a$$hole for doing it.  

drawn to design, designed to draw

Maybe I am biased because I work in the energy sector and it is still an old boys club, and I can't speak to your company policies, but "A fair and level playing field" also means fair and level in ALL areas.  Like it or hate it, there are very few companies out there that I have found (in engineering specifically) that don't seem to throw up extra road blocks to advancement to female employees (even subconsciously).  In my experience, the woman who is "awarded" 6 weeks of paid leave also gets passed over for promotion a few times in favour of a man (who may or may not be less qualified) who is not "awarded" the same benefit.  Again, I can't speak for your company, but I have no problem with the inequality when it comes to maternity leave, because I still make $1.15 for every $1.00 that a woman makes and it's easier for me to move up, so I'll make it back in spades.

Increasingly companies, already burdened with taxes and red tape, paid holidays etc. are being required to provide services that the government should provide.
It is not in a companies interests to employ people who then take long leaves for whatever reason.
Some of these services should be provided by the state if the state believes in them so much.
By all means, be entitled to maternity leave by which the employee is entitled to the time away from work and a job to come back to but who should pay? the company or the state?
I'd suggest the state should pay a statutory amount to replace the employee's salary.
Making employers pay for so many social services is just another and more iniquitous form of taxation.
By placing the burden on the employers it must be expected that the ones who will suffer are all employees since you can bet that the salary pot will be adjusted to cover these costs at the expense of those who do not take maternity leave, who do not treat sick days as some form of extra holiday.
Employess will, of course, seek all sorts of ways to avoid paying out as much as they should. One way is to keep salaries lower than they might be, to keep people on lower grades etc.
On the other hand, if the government used taxes to pay these benefits they would pay a more appropriate amount and, as the welfare budget increases, they might be a little less liberal with their legislation. It is easy to legislate for all sorts of things and go to excess when someone else picks up the bills.

 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

It's a state law in MA that the company offer 8 weeks unpaid leave and federal law is 12 weeks, but only for companies of 50 employees or more.  What annoyed me was that the person in question was complaining about how she couldn't survive on the 8 week plan and management heard her and "awarded" her with this new policy.  The fact that others had kids before her wasn't taken into account.  When the policy was "announced" it was a memo sent to four women deemed by HR to be of childbearing age.  I got wind of it and asked for my dues by MA law.
HR responded by stating that I was making much more money than the girl.  I responded by stating she was a CS Rep and I was a product manager...bit of a difference and not my fault if the company pays some of its employees poorly.
I don't see any glass ceilings in our company.  We are less than fifty people and I can safely state of the top ten earners, it's about equal men and women

drawn to design, designed to draw

Our last VP was of the female persuasion.  She was just as useless as her male predecessors and antecedents.

KENAT,

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I can't say that I agree that the state should pay maternity leave, but if the state is going to mandate it then they should fund it.  The hidden tax nonsense needs to stop somewhere.  

Many people say that the primary role of society is to protect infants and pregnant women.  That was a lot easier before women started filling jobs that must be filled while they are gone having babies.  Today, a policy that pays a woman during maternity leave is faced with the reasonable request to provide the same leave for someone adopting an infant, then comes the reasonable request that new fathers need time off because no one in the house gets much sleep with a new baby.  Then a lifelong bachelor sues because most of the workforce has access to a "benefit" that they are not eligible to receive and a court upholds the suit (in any case the employer had to spend money to defend the suit).  Where does the proper role of society fit into that?  The typical response is to back off the 6 week paid leave in favor of the legal minimum unpaid period.  Who won by that?

Once again the answer is Tort Reform.  If you can make it unprofitable for Lawyers to pursue this crap it would go back to a company policy intended to retain employees instead of a "perk only available to a select few".

David    

What I don't like is that it's almost as if the working nation here in the US is almost conspiring against us having a family.  In other countries the attitude of the workforce is a lot more favorable to the family.

drawn to design, designed to draw

No conspiracy, simply rational reactions to bad laws and stupid litigation.  The only "good" thing that has come of the PC nonsense is that paternalistic businesses are getting progressively more rare (my employer is simply not my mommy and I resent it when they forget that).  The flip side is the government now wants to be my mommy, but they don't have the attention span to do as much long-term harm as an employeer does (probably wishful thinking on my part).

David

Quote (ajack1):

If you want to know how to create sex discrimination let the British government get involved.

Two words: Harriet Harperson

 Waidesworld: You´re a man. You are always an a##h#le and always wrong no matter what. It is awful, but that's the set-up these days.

Dan

People who go along and promote these moronic "feelgood" gestures in the name of eliminating racism and sexism, are simply acknowledging that they, in fact, are the ones who are the most afflicted with said racism and sexism.  It's a guilt complex thing.  

Hypersensitivity to race is racism in and of itself, is it not ?!?!

 Onerynorsk has a point. We are (I think)DNA-programmed to be suspicious of people looking or talking differently. That was a good trait for a cave-man, but we still carry it around.
You need to acknowledge that you deep down is "suspicious" before you can do anything about it. Just pushing it down will not help.
Once you acknowledge it, you can deal with the feeling intelligently and eventually it will subside. Which is for the better for us all.

My 2c

Dan
 

My daughter gave me a great demonstration of how racial discrimination is fading here.  We were watching some kid's TV over the weekend.  She asked me who my favourite character in some programme was.  I said (being over 40), the black kid (shame on me!).  Her reply: "You mean the boy with the purple shirt?".  It wasn't PC, she meant it.

- Steve

But why is it better to ignore the skin colour and pick on the shirt colour?
Suppose the favourite character was the only girl in the cast, would you say "the girl" or would you say "the one in the purple shirt"?
You can change your shirt but not your skin.
Skin colour is an obvious characteristic. Why not use that as a descriptive?
What you are ding is ignoring someone's personal attributes.
If you said "the fat one" that would be to pass a judgement so you would look for some non-judgemental description. Not to use colour as an identifier implies the same judgemental consideration and that means a negative judgement.

To me, to ignore an obvious characteristic is to ignore something about that person that they may in fact be proud of.

Of course, in some cultures, "girl" is a negative judgemental description because in some cultures, females are second class citizens.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

How would saying "the fat one" be passing judgement?  If you are referring to a 200 lb 10 year old, then I'm sorry, he's fat.  There could be many reasons for his heft, and it may not be his fault, but he is still fat.  Fact, not judgement.
That said, I would refrain from using that term in the company of anyone who may be offended by it, pc or not.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

that depends on wether his friend standing next to him is 300lb.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

"But why is it better to ignore the skin colour and pick on the shirt colour?"
It's not necessarily better (although I personally think it is), but from a young kids perspective, fashion is more important than skin colour. SGs daughter probably wasn't intentionally ignoring the skin colour ... it just wasn't an issue.

The thing with that is that it's a show and as such the kid will be black on the next episode but not necessarily in a purple shirt, so should the right answer have been the black kid in the purple shirt?  Yes, if there was more than one black kid.

drawn to design, designed to draw

I'm tired - it is that EVERYTHING is becoming offensive to someone or some group.  You have the Principal and the Athletic director of a school in Florida being charged with a crime which can include 6 months in jail, 5000 fine and loss of their pension because they, in a meeting of school boosters at which there were no students in attendance, "blessed" the food.  A girl in FLorida was not permitted, as Class President, to give a speech at commencement (as has been the tradition) because of what she "MIGHT" say. Teachers and others are having to watch themselves to a point for when someone sneezes and they say "God bless you", it is offensive to the ACLU, and they might lose their job.  We are getting to the point of being so wishy-washy (can I use that term?), or what we used to say, "artsy fartsy" (engineers vs the liberal arts) - that it is becoming no or little fun to live.  Best send little Johnny (or is that Johnny of short stature - being that he is only 7 years old) to schol and teach him to say NOTHING to ANYBODY. Common sense died some 10 years ago according to the Indianapolis Star and I say that it is being driven much much deeper that its intial burying depth of 6 ft (1.83 m). http://lukeamerica2020.wordpress.com/2009/04/01/common-sense-obituary/
Arggg - interesting thread . . .

Can one person claiming to be offended really cause several thousands to have to change their speech and behaviour patterns? Or should the one person learn to live with things?
But that is where we are today. One person can by complaining of prejudice, cause great distress and discomfort to a great many.
We have the ludicrous situation of Spotted Dick being renamed Spotted Richard in some canteen not because some one is offended but because a couple of people snigger.
We have all sorts of words being replaced by meaningless words simply because someone somewhere thinks they may offend someone else. We don't even wait for the presumed offence to occur. Someone imagines that some one else might be offended and that's all it takes.

I'm tired of it all too, tired of this insane asylum that is being run by the insane.

Oh, sorry, Resort for those with alternative mental Normality.
Damn.
Not allowed to use Normal any more because it implies any one not normal is sub normal.
Ok, no asylum. No Hostel, no mental health problems. No ...differently mentally equipped.... damn, different from what? normal? Me?
....

Evard Munch.... I realise now that his painting sums up not the anguish of the mentally deranged in a normal world but of normal people in a deranged world.

http://www.alibaba.com/productshowimg/001galerie-11100639-10763874/Rep_Edvard_Munch_The_Scream_Oil_Painting_Art_Prints.html
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Ironically, we no longer use blackboards, we use whiteboards.

- Steve

When I was in school, the board that the teacher wrote on was black and it was called a blackboard.  Maybe because it was black.  At some point, the boards were green and you might be surprised to learn they were called greenboards.  Now, in my office is a whiteboard, and this may come as a shock to you, but it's actually white in color.

There is nothing ironic in those acurate names.  What's idiotic is the thought that the actually color means anything else.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

PC is for touchy people: people who have led a very sheltered life and who think the whole world is out to get them.  It is also a ridiculous platform for suing because the touchy people got so depressed/angered over a common everyday term.  If we brought up our kids not to be so touchy and removed the compensation culture, there wouldn't be any need for PC.

The irony is that after all the fuss made about the word "blackboard" (certainly in London schools), they are now obsolete and replaced with another board that can only really be called by its colour.
 

- Steve

No, they can also be called "dry marker boards".
Some old fashioned teachers (if there are any left) might conceivably use the term "blackboard" as a generic term much as some people use a trade name i.e. the common name to call ball points "biros" and vacuum cleaners "hoovers".

Funny, I can only think of the trade names becoming generic when I am looking for examples of original names becoming generic  -  mental block - till I do I can't substantiate what some old boy will call a blackboard. Still, all the PC in the world won' stop a London Cabby calling a female passenger Dear, Duck, Darlin' or whatever.  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

I'd call it a flipping black board.  I'd call a green board the same thing.  Or maybe abbreviate it to 'board'.

Ridiculous, the whole thing.

I know I harped on the Anglo Saxon Male thing earlier, but there was a reason for this, I was basically told by someone that I had no say in anything related to 'discrimination' since being a white male I'd obviously never been a victim of it so wouldn't understand, or something like that.  What twaddle.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

KENAT, could be worse, you could be a White Anglo Saxon Male Smoker:)

Regards,

Mike

I never saw a chalkboard that was black in a classroom before college.  Before that they were all green and everyone called them "blackboards".

It makes me furious that a useful, common word can be usurped by a particular group and its use perverted within a generation.  When I was a kid "gay" meant "happy, joyful" and a "gay blade" was something of a "rake".  "Black was a color.  Now both words are verboten.  BULLSHIT.  The worst of it is that many people of the negro race find the "black" label offensive so you can't safely use it either as a color or as a label.  And why in the world is someone of mixed race like our President called "black"?

David

We actually had black slate blackboards in my school, and that wasn't so long ago.

But we tended to call them blackboards, or chalkboards, or simply 'boards' equally as often.  Never used 'greenboard', that's something you put on the bathroom walls before you put up tile.

Your comment on 'gay' reminds me of a cartoon:  I was told this was a gay bar, but everyone here looks pretty glum...

In my humble opinion:

http://tinypic.com/r/iy3ac3/3
or the Eng link

Help rescue exotic & endangered birds. Feathered Friends Forever (.org) is the largest non-profit parrot sanctuary in the US, 2nd worldwide with over 800 birds on site.
Check the website & make a donation if you can. I'm on the Board of Directors now. http://www.featheredfriendsforever.org/

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=58125978-c132-4347-b4e1-fb

Don't think anyone already posted this.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/214989/page/1

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

we have coon cheese in australia, there was a group that tried to have it changed a while back, but didn't get their way, should they have? or did the world get it right for once?

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

Strange that a bunch of Irish naysayers haven't gooten rid of the PaddyWagon term yet....oh wait, we don't give a rats a$$!

drawn to design, designed to draw

Or "Mick".

The Welsh don't seem to get to worked up about "Sheepshagger" either.

- Steve

Well I never found "honkey", "cracker", "white bread" or "Gringo" particularly offensive either.

Though a good part of good manners is trying not to cause offense.  So if many of the terms for other ethnic groups are offensive I'm fine with not using them in that manner.  However to ban a word that can be used legitimately in other contexts as I believe the OP was doing is just dumb.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

I remember once hearing about a councillor from a UK county (sorry if I don't have the title/name quite right) when he was told his budget was frozen - he uttered "I must be niggardly in our procurement" (or something to that effect - he was roundly assailed because far too many couldn't differentiate niggardly with the N-word.  Similarly when a councillor is the US uttered conspicuous. Proctor and Gamble changed their toothpast "Darkie" to "Darlie" several years back in Indonesia (I gave returning gifts of "Darkie" to my mates back in Canada - oopps). Ran into an African-American seller at a flea market in Shipshawanna IN and he said he could sell thousands with that name -  

Update on the Florida School Officials.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/09/17/florida.school.prayer/index.html
 

and . . . I finally found the B.C. comic I saw years ago.
 

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=9fa14aab-56fc-4e0c-adf2-cd

The key to PC or rather, to prejudice, is not to stop people saying things that might offend other people (and which may be offensive to the people who would say them) but for people to stop taking offence at the things other people say.

That way you don't shut down communication.
Communication is the key to understanding and tolerance.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

jmw...glad you brought up the "C" word.  My son goes to a private school. My wife and I have been active in the parent programs and issues since he started there in kindergarten.  When he was a freshman (9th grade) in "upper school" as they call it, my wife and I were asked to be on the "Executive Committee" of the Parent Association of the school.  We accepted since we are friends of the parents who chaired the association.

We were tasked with developing a "communication system" for the parents of each of the 4 campuses of this school.  Being an anal retentive engineer this was both a simple task and a challenge....how little did I know!!

We developed communications protocols that would allow parents to be informed in real time of the activities of each campus....NOPE...not good.  The administration needed to "screen" the activity observations to make sure they did not "offend" any particular group of students or parents.  Mostly what they were concerned with was that we would pi$$ off some of the parents and their donations would go down.  While my wife and I developed some good protocols that are now followed and have improved the communications of the school, we decided that the PC approach killed proper communication and when we were asked to stay on for a 2nd year on the committee, we declined.

Bottom line...communication always takes a back seat to PC bull$hit.

Ron - it seems like nearly everything takes a back seat to PC bull$__t.

I wonder if they have problems with PC in native African tribes.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

People are too damn sensitive!

What's next? Let's spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to change handicapped signs to say "differently abled". Let's change all construction signs to say "People at work". Hell, the word, "menstruation" offends me. I want it called "Why's-my-girlfriend-such-a-b*tch".

The more time people spend complaining about ridiculous topics, the less time there is to actually change the way people think.

The only thing that this PC BS has done is taken an otherwise indifferent group of people, and just made them more pissed off.

I am not discriminatory or racist. I will not be PC. Ever. I will say manhole, chairman, rule of thumb, blackboard, or whatever word I know to describe a specific object or situation.

Idiots have way too much power.

V

I like vc66's PC choice for "menstruation".

"Rule of thumb" offends me.  I have ten thumbs.

- Steve

A minor victory for common sense , Spotted Richard is off the menu.
http://news.uk.msn.com/odd-news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=149868327

Quote:

"It's all the more ridiculous when we now learn that only one person was responsible for making smutty remarks which led them to get rid of something which has been a tradition for more than 150 years."

And that is what it is all about....how a minority voice, a single voice of complaint results in many hundreds being inconvenienced or offended instead of that one lone voice being told to grow up and get a life. Get some therapy.

PS I suspect this isn't the first "immature" comment made in 150 years.... one wonders where they get easily offended canteen staff from.

Anyway, something far more fun has come from this... the Flintshire councillor ....Klaus Armstrong-Braun what kind of a name is that for a self respecting Welshman?
Klaus Armstrong-Jones, maybe but Braun? That's a hair dryer isn't it?
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Ahh Klaus.....the great crested newt campaigner!!
I remember 15 newts costing the taxpayer £20k each after his insistence that a highways scheme include a full-blown newt protection and relocation scheme!!

Thank you for that information Stego1

Somehow I now can visualise Klaus as per the portrayal of PG Wodehouse's Barmy Finknottle in the best of the Jeeves and Wooster series, the Hugh Laurie (Dr House) and Stephen Fry version....

However ever much newts deserve to be taken seriously and newt fanciers, PG Wodehouse has forever made them seem somewhat ludicrous.
There is, in the stories an adversarial juxtaposition of Barmy Finknottle with Sir Roderick Spode and his Black Shorts (a parody of Mosley, Sir Oswald, not his curious son).

Somehow that other famous newt fancier, Red Ken, could never be regarded seriously as he embodied the looniness of both Finknottle and Spode.

Perhaps a shade unfortunate.
Had any one taken him seriously as the deep socialist cove he was, we might not have been surprised by his palace coup when he took control of the GLC from the elected labour mayor and we should never have allowed him to become the New Labour Style of London Mayor with his penchant for excusing terrorists and sucking up to Hugo Chavez.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

<shrug>  As the guys with Digital Underground used to sing, "All Around the World, Same Song".

If it weren't so sad, I'd die laughing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1216501/Mark-madness-Police-refuse-suspects-birthmark-ID-parade--sale-human-rights.html

This is the story of a witness who clearly saw the burglar had a port wine stain on his face.
In the police identity parades the stand-ups all had masks over their faces to conceal where one of them had a port wine stain.

They were worried that it might infringe the burglars rights.

Aren't our police wondeful idiots?  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

The police, or the legal system that makes them think like that?

Did anyone else see where a bank in Florida refused to cash a man's cheque from his wife because he couldn't give a thumbprint??  He had been born without any hands and the teller and her manager said - "Too bad, without a thumbprint you will have to bring your wife in to cash the cheque."   

..clearly a husband who is literally under the thumb, as we say in the UK.

corus

I'm slightly disappointed that so many people on here are beleiving this PC myth.
Our newspapers are full of this nonsense, and the vast majority of it is either grossly exaggerated, purposefully mis-interpreted or entirely made up.
Stories like Schools stopping singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep", or Birmingham Council banning the word "Christmas" replacing it with "Winterval". Nonsense, it didn't happen.
Nobody has ever told me what turns of phrase I can or can't use, and I suspect most of the other posters on here are the same, so why do we want to believe this rubbish so much. I think part of us secretly enjoys scoffing at the absurdity of it.
On the other hand, the more that tales of "PC lunacy" are repeated, even if it is to laugh at them, the more people that believe them and the more it effects our behaviour.
 

Stories like Schools stopping singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep"

They didn't stop singing the song, but some certainly did change the 'offending' word.

Didn't Enid Blyton's Noddy book come under the gun?  The Gollywogs (evil guys) were replaced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noddy_%28character%29

For heaven's sake people it was written in the fifties!

drawn to design, designed to draw

Yeah, Noddy got some serious censoring as I recall.

Not sure Big Ears was allowed either.

Larger than average, but still perfectly normal ears?

- Steve

I am sure that some of it might be a bit over the top.  however, I went to a high school (in a northern state) and we were nicknamed the Rebels.  Our flag, of course, was the Stars and Bars.  It was banned back in the 90s to bring to football games, etc. as being "insensitve" and not politically correct.   A Bank of America branch did remove US flags that were lined up in front of their bank and all along the remainder of the street in a southern city that were put there for a dead soldier's funeral. There is a movement out there.  

Gollywogs were also removed from Robinson's Marmalade ... for no good reason.
Quite a few Children's books are being "edited" for PC but no real attempts to "edit" or regulate the video games, DVDs or films they see.
When I was little the Wizard of OZ was dead scary.... the scariest thing you could see.
Now they are allowed to view the bloodiest vilest video games and horrific scenes in movies and few people seem to ask how these things influence children... how many Jamie Bulger cases does it take? How many cases of under 8 gangs beating up on old ladies or how many children kidnapping torturing and killing other children does it take before someone will ask which is the more important problem here?

Baa baa black sheep doesn't figure high on my list....
actually, I wonder about the sort of people who write these games and videos.....
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

jmw, I can't talk to the relative % changes but some of those problems you mention existed back in the days of Gollywogs etc.

I saw a program a few weeks back about some 12 or 13 year old girl serial killer from Newcastle way back in the 50's or maybe 60's.  Killed several very young boys from her neigbourhood.  In that case it seems a big part of the cause was that her mother was a Prostitute that didn't take particulary good care of her, allowed her to witness some of the goings on (including S & M stuff) and even pimped her out to some of her clients/made her join in etc.

While we may like to try and link some of what we perceive as modern societies woe's to things such as the PC movement I'm not sure it holds water to do so.

I still think PC is generally a stupid waste of time.  Perhaps the time, money and effort devoted to it would be better spent trying to help vulnerable children etc. so they don't become the next serial killer.

jmw,

   I understand that Grimm's Fairy Tales back in the nineteenth century were pretty gross.

               JHG

I am not linking PC to these problems, the contrary. It seems to me people latch on to PC as something they can do and because it is an "easy" one.

I don't say that the problems of modern children are new nor exclusively caused by video games or videos. Sure, there are always those who commit atrocities.

But I am saying that just as it is easy to target PC and pick on words and claim some one somewhere will be offended, it is also easy not to do something about the factors in unsocial behaviour. It is easy (perhaps because of the huge sums involved) to justify making violent videos and violent video games and allowing very young children to immerse themselves in these artificial worlds by claiming tha there is no harm and that, as Kenat says, these crimes pre-date video games and video nasties... sure they do.
But in the case Kenat mentions and in others we can always find at the root, some unhappy childhood experience that may manifest itself either in that childhood or later in life.
It seems to me that drug companies have to do an awful lot of testing to try and prove both the efficacy of their new drugs and that they have no negative side effects. But I am not aware of any deep and searching studies that show definitely that these games and videos do not adversely affect children.

I'd have to admit to being very suspicious of any study that could show them to be innocuous. But who is making these studies?

I guess I'd better see what a Google throws up but based on my own experiences and seeing how different many children are today from how I remember childhood.... I would have to wonder..... it wont be just videos, it will be growing up in a house with no books, the TV on all the time but tuned to rubbish programs....  sitting alone all evening in a room with the internet as their companion.

It doesn't take much to figure out there is a risk to investigate. A teacher I knew said that she was moved to a new school in a poor area. The no books, TV all the time and disinterested parents.... the children were inarticulate and zombie like. Nothing dramatic, but clearly some simple factors in their environment had a profound effect on these children. Today they have the internet and easy access to games and videos... and little or no intelligent supervison or guidance....

So who is going to say these children will not be the products of whatever is poured into their brains in glorious technicolour with lashings of "realsitic" gore and Dolby sound?


 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

Or maybe it's the gradual elimination of corporal punishment, or are vaccinations to blame, perhaps long trousers (pants) for school boys, excessive travel in automobiles, showering everyday, climate change...

There are a lot of things that have changed over time, and a lot of other perceived changes that are harder to subtantiate.

It's kind of like the pirates & global warming trend graph.

There may appear to be a relationship but determining actual cause & effect link is another matter.

Take the attached as some tongue in cheek but it does hint at the recent discussons.

• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=e8829f57-8b65-46c1-8079-6f

hokkie66,
Did you watch the 'Hey hey it's Saturday' reunion this week?
Do you still believe the PC cr$%p won't spill over in Oz? Just ask Harry Connick Jr...Those bludgers who ran out of room in US, now are stirring the proverbial in Oz.

I didn't watch it.  To me, the whole show has always been in poor taste and not very funny.  It is certainly irreverent and politically incorrect.  But racist?  I think not.  I think Aussies will continue to do their own thing with comedy, the rest of the world be damned.

I saw it, thought it was C**P, both for the PC and just because it was C**P. Might have been funny 20 years ago, but definitely not today. RED should have given them the dong within the first few seconds.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

to aspsix

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I'm sure that the whole "baa baa black sheep" story was exposed some time ago as being very misleading.

I was aware of one nursery who had added some extra verses to the song as a means of teaching the children the colours, they didn't stop singing Black, and nobody asked them to either. This was then widely reported in the press as some sort of pernicious influence of the shadowy PC brigade - the irony being that the coverage was so widespread that they may have even convinced some other schools that they should have been doing this too.

Good points, Richkeogh.

I was going to post a link to a Richard Littlejohn article in the Daily Mail which reported that a certain police force was muzzling its big dogs and going to switch to spaniels from Alsations because Alsations are too aggressive, but desisted until I could check it out.

Now, given the current stupidities of the UK police forces and the PC environment generally, this is all too easy to believe.

However, a little internet searching revealed the true story to be that a police force in North Wales was only going to muzzle its general purpose Alsations when used for rescue work and would be acquiring three spaniels exclusively for rescue work in future.

It seems criminals need not expect to be tracked by muzzled spaniels but by the open jawed, sharp toothed, aggressive salivating Alsations as usual.

Littlejohn forgot to mention the bit about rescue work and you can understand, as one commentator put it, that a young child lost in the Welsh hills might be somewhat alarmed by the sudden appearance of the wolf-like Alsation, all teeth and noise but comforted by a tail wagging, wriggling, eager to please spaniel.

It really would be nice if there was some code of journalistic excellence that prevented all this misleading reporting but if there were and if they abided by it, they'd all be out of jobs.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

richkeogh

My wife taught infants in London in the 90's, she is my source, not the media.

I do agree that reports in the media may be written to sensationalise otherwise unexciting news, and I suspect that may be an understatement.

Last night Andrew Neil, the presenter on the BBC's political comment programme This Week informed us viewers that the Warwickshire constabulary had released guidence for the policemen and women saying that they couldn't use the words "evening all" and such like because the person being spoken to might not understand the concept of afternoon, evening, morning etc.

Another police force has just had an 'elf and safety missive warning them about cold in winter, wet leaves in autumn etc.
It was not well received.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

Our local Keystone Cops issues a elf and safety for Halloween Trick or Treating which was for the most part well intentioned.  Things like warning drivers about kids benig hard to see, jumping into the road, crossing at haphazard locations but what irked me was the comments in the last few paragraphs.  They explained how you shouldn't allow your kid to have all the candy at one, and should distribute it as snacks over the coming days.  I am sorry, but if my pride and joy wants to scoff his arsenal of candy down and puke his brains out after, that's his prerogative and my failing as a father for allowing him to do it.  But it's nothing to do with the coppers.  Ok, I am off the soapbox now.

drawn to design, designed to draw

I got one of those joke e-mails yesterday that contained a patently racist joke.  This was from a business contact of mine.  A year ago he would never have sent it.  Today it didn't bother him to send it.  I think the difference is that before the last election we were all so afraid of being called a racist that few people were willing to risk any marginal behavior.  After a year of being called racists by the administration for daring to disagree with them, and increasing number of people have stopped caring.

I heard a report from the Army this weekend that said flat out that PC language was a significant contributor to the Ft Hood shooter staying under the radar.  And that they can already see the erosion of PC language.

Maybe it is on the way to its death.

David

@graham, "gordon bleeding bennett" ... pun not intended ?

@waidesworld, maybe if the police are giving you parenting advise, that allows you to give them policing advice ??  somehow, i suspect that they wouldn't get the subtlity.

I was watching American football yesterday and a player with the ball fell on his arse after making a catch.  The announcers spent the next 2 minutes (with several replays) questioning out loud if it was OK to use the word posterior to describe what part of the player hit the ground first.  What a terrible waste of airtime.  

drawn to design, designed to draw

Waidesworld - I note that you used the more polite "arse" than the normal one we would all say . . .  Half of the stuff the commentators say is a terrible waste of airtime!

I'm sorry, but those guy's job is to ensure that there is never any dead air.  They could make farting noises and provide more information than you can get from their inane jabber, but at the end of the day they are just doing what they're getting paid to do.

David

I'd rather listen to their blather than watch the same commercial for the umpteenth time.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies to make the best use of these Forums?

No BigH, arse is the rude one, ass is the polite one.

Obviously depending where & when in time and space you are.

As for inane sports commenator twaddle, perhaps the ultimate:

http://www.johnners.com/

Summers really aren't the same without him.

While we're on the topic of supidity, it appears the Royal Navy has been standing around watching yachties get captured by pirates for "elf and safety reasons - the people on board had not been trained in hostage rescue - though it appears they did have a Royal Marine Commando unit on board.

It further transpires that there is a catch and release policy (like fishing) with some 350 SOmali pirates having been let go as soon as caught in case they claim political asylum - the AFghan Hi-jackers of an aircraft diverted to Stansted did exactly that and we have news today of a Somali family being housed in a £1.8 million apartment in London and costing the tax payers around £175,000 a year.

Me, I have decided there is some mileage in this piracy game so I just need to find the money to get to the Gulf and for a small boat with an outboard motor once I get there.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

Not like the good old days when you got prize money and could press the captured crew.

Even tho I am told I cannot use the word drill-jig, I refuse to relent.  It has absolutely nothing to do with people.  It's a thing.  Every Tool Design text or manual appropriately identifies it as such.  What I am sensitive about is that too many people misuse the word jig when they mean fixture or any number of other tooling devices that are not jigs.  Everything is a jig or if it isn't a jig, it's a die another abused term like when they really mean punch they call it die.  People just cannot seem to call a spade a spade -- ooops!  I was talking of playing cards of course as in spades vs diamonds.  

Girls? -- gimme a break!  I thought females -- er non male humnanoids -- were sensitive to feelings of premature over-aged syndrome and therefore would consider being referred to as a girl would be a COMPLIMENT!  But noooo, we must take offense at something.  A true lady is offended if called a woman and of course my wife will be offended if I call a certain type of non male humanoid a lady but then it also depends on which part of the day or evening is attached to the lady term.

Chair?  I thought that was something that a person sits on.  OK chairperson if you must which rankles me much less than chair.  That just sounds plain stupid to me.  Hmm -- isn't there something in English grammar about person, place, or thing?

Once upon a time I took a class in computer programming.  The author of the text -- I think he was a man as opposed to the other gender -- chose to use personal pronouns of She, Her etc in every instance where we are used to the He Him version which would not normally be meant to infer gender rather implying mankind or person etc.  This was very distracting,counterproductive, and frustrating in trying to understand the subject matter at hand.

We certainly have become silly about all this nonsense.  However it is our own fault speaking of us male chauvinistic pigs for mistreating females in past times as somehow being inferior.  So now they are getting their just desserts.

What it comes down to is that we need to be sensitive to others feelings and attempt to be desensitized to our own feelings.  Yes our choice of words are very important but not nearly as important as our meaning if used to denigrate(to make black; blacken: rain clouds denigrating the sky = one definition),demoralize,demean, or degrade others.  Sometimes people need to be put on notice frankly and forthrightly but not out of spite or revenge or prejudice and not with ill-used words.  Sorry now I'm preaching.

Attempting to legislate words that cannot be used is not the answer, it is stupidity.

After all, PC is an oxymoron.

"The author of the text -- I think he was a man as opposed to the other gender -- chose to use personal pronouns of She, Her etc in every instance where we are used to the He Him version which would not normally be meant to infer gender rather implying mankind or person etc."

The books written by Liker, et al about the Toyota Way and the Toyota Process System do the same.

metman,

   I have read a few documents where there the author has mixed hes and hers in an attempt to be fair.  If I have time, I count the occurrences.  Either these are equal, or the author is a sexist pig of some sort.  It is fun pointing this out.  

   If we all have to be PC, we can at least hold the purveyors of it to their own standards.  

               JHG

I'll go on a limb here and risk discomforting some members. I am African in a country where we have 54 tribes, consisting of subtribes that in turn consist of clans and so on. There is always an element of discrimination amongst the tribes, in that friendships and alliances even at workplaces can go along these tribal links. I suppose this is from the earlier mentioned inclination to suspect everyone different. Having said that, I know of many friendships, families, and associations that have transcended these barriers. A good thing. What I can't understand is its propagation even in modern-day situations. Selfishness?
PC is absolutely useless if it is creating more problems than solutions to artificial misconceptions. If one lives in a multi-cultural environment (at present that is almost everywhere on earth), then one should have tolerance and understanding to all expressions, and figures of speech used in that environment. Forcing some sort of limitations to vocabulary on the populace to avoid offence is a hindrance to the beauty of verbal communication.
Ships, countries were female in historical prose. Do they have any gender now? So is it now okay to call a baby of unknown gender 'it'? The notion of litigation on all matters even on common-sense issues is turning us into communicators of lacklustre abilities, to say the least.
Is the bus driver a male terminology? What of sculptor, ship-captain, master-of-the boat?

jumaj

I agree with but you lost me on this:

Is the bus driver a male terminology? What of sculptor, ship-captain, master-of-the boat?

Somehow this makes me think of actor/actress.  It is beyond me to understand why anyone would have a problem with the word actress.

It seems like much of the PC(Printed Circuit or Personal Computer -- right?) silliness comes from an attempt to mitigate racial descrimination which, as we all know, does not work.  One can still use PC correct words and demean with tone, body language, facial expression, voice inflection, unecessary repition, etc.  It has a lot to do with upbringing and environment and each indivduals' desire to be fair, understanding, forgiving, belief that every human being is special/unique and that each person has value.

My Dad was a dumb Swede as a kid in Spokane, Washington.  The Dutch had/have a demeaning mockery applied to them and on and on for the different races, ethniticity, etc.  As a young man, my Dad worked with a Swedish construction crew in California.  One evening he and a fellow worker were walking in San Diego when two Mexicans (is there something wrong with this description?  Meaning a person from Mexico?  I fail to see why the word hispanic is superior.  So then don't we need another word for American or Californian) OK, back to the two gentleman from Mexico -- walked nearby speaking in their native tongue (I'm sorry should I use some other term instead of "native?") my Dad's companion snarled at the jibbersh that was being spoken between the two persons from Mexico and made some nasty comment.  My Dad said to his companion, "what do you suppose they think about us speaking in Swedish?  Did you have any choice as to which nationality you were born?"

I'm sorry but I am prejudiced against people who are racially prejudiced and have nearly zero tolerance for it.

And whatever became of freedom of speech?

Oh -- I forgot to add:

PC my derriere!

After the Christmas Day Airliner Bomb attempt there summary of a Yahoo News story that said "As a memeber of an uppercrust n****ian family ...".  http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:y_news:ee1ac10bfb3df8cc3a8a213dc4254a00/Bomb-suspect-came-from-elite-family-best-schools-AP  

When we are so PC that a newspaper has to blank out the name of a great country like Nigera to avoid offending someone (I'm not sure on this one who would be offended by the name of a country) then the bus has left and we are all doomed.

David

Did AP blank it?  Or Yahoo?

- Steve

Metman,

You have ruined my day.  Being the PC person that I am (hard to show tongue in cheek in print) I have insisted on saying Meggro for years now (can't say Megger any more can we?), but hadn't though how crass it would be to say drill-jig.

Shucks.

rmw

rmw,
You will have to help me on this one -- Megger.  Must be something perverse going on here so maybe I don't really wanna know?

mmmm-- crass eh?  hadna thought of it that way either.  Maybe I should rethink my insistence to use that terminology.  We need an emoticom with tongue-in-cheek.

megger - no dictionary results
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No results found for megger:
Did you mean Merger?Dictionary:
Mugger
meager
merger
mugger
mergee
muggee
muggier
egger
merge
menger
Pegger
kegger
maiger
mauger
meeker

I'm a flangehead and I know that a megger (or meggro) is an instrument used by sparkies to control the magic.  They crank on a handwheel really fast for a while, say a few magical words (mostly starting with F**** and goddamn) and the electricity magically starts working again.

Somptingguy, It looks like Yahoo did it in the summary, if you go to the full article it didn't happen.

David

A Megger, excuse me, Meggro is as David states a test instrument very commonly used to test motors and generators and transformers; any gadget that has insulation that you want to test the integrity of.

Go to the motors and generators forum and do a search for Megger and you will be reading for a while.

rmw   

Here in the states, there's a very tiny and nasty red mite that bites you behind the knee and other warm moist places I won't mention here. For hundreds of years it was called a chigger or red bug. Then suddenly we couldn't say either of those and we had to change to "CHIGRO". After awhile, even that didn't work and now it's "INSECT AMERICAN"

Ellory,
You must be joking...but maybe not!  I think I endured enough chigger bites as a youngster that I deserve to still call them what they are.  Particularly bad when picking blackberries, but the blackberry rolls with white sauce made it worthwhile.

Quote (Ellory):

...Then suddenly we couldn't say either of those...

What do mean, 'couldn't say', cat got yer tongue.  Who says you can't say a legitmate word?  I just looked it up in the dictionary "...a tiny, reddish, wormlike larva..."  and you can't say red bug??????

What is wrong with the word chigger?  Is it because it rymes with a word that starts with N?  Really I am clueless.

I've known about chiggers since I met my wife who grew up in Missouri (Mizzura) and a few weeks ago my friend, Bob, in Illinois told me over the phone that he had one bite him right where you would not want and right on the head of it.

Quote:

places I won't mention here

'cause I ain't sure what he meant beings that is exaclty how he said it minus the quote from Ellory.

You guys must be very niggardly with the insect repellant.

The N word that rymes with chigger is not in my dictionary but the N word that rymes with dastardly is.  Some years ago a civil servant I think it was in Washington D.C. got into deep doo-doo for using ...ardly word.

Yes he is very ...ardly with insect reppellant or anything that would twitch the nose of deer alerting it to eminent danger as he is an avid deer hunter.

whats with the .... dots?

oops forgot one dot should have been ....ardly.

....= nigg

Hence the name of the thread; "More PC stupidity."

rmw