I went to a business talk yesterday and heard something odd.
Apparently, if you sit down with your colleagues and throw ideas around, it is now un-PC to call it a brainstorming session. I'm not sure what you are meant to call it, but the word brainstorming is now seen as offensive to epileptics, - quite who sees it as such I don't know, but there you go - because the fits they experience could be described as a brain storm.
Question:
Have you come across any situations where you were discouraged from saying what you meant, because it wasn't PC?
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Chap I work with who also works as a Special Constable told me that in a briefing a full police officer got an official warning in front of everyone for calling a manhole cover.... a manhole cover.
Apparently this is a derogatory term for women's genitalia...the correct term is "Service hatch".
Service hatch eh? They thought that one through...
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quote:Originally posted by Abby: Only today a friend of mine wrote this...
Chap I work with who also works as a Special Constable told me that in a briefing a full police officer got an official warning in front of everyone for calling a manhole cover.... a manhole cover.
Apparently this is a derogatory term for women's genitalia...the correct term is "Service hatch".
Service hatch eh? They thought that one through...
How on earth did said full police officer keep a straight face?
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quote:Originally posted by Purple Monkey Dishwasher: Apparently, if you sit down with your colleagues and throw ideas around, it is now un-PC to call it a brainstorming session. I'm not sure what you are meant to call it, but the word brainstorming is now seen as offensive to epileptics, - quite who sees it as such I don't know, but there you go - because the fits they experience could be described as a brain storm.
Was the talk by a colleague or by an external consultant of some kind? A lot of these "guess what's pc now" things that get chucked around are culled from tabloids like the Daily Mail, which clearly rail at not being able to 'speak as they find' (ie. calling a black man 'boy' etc)
Being in a public body, appalling financese like "inputs and outputs" tend to be the chief irritant.
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quote:Originally posted by Abby: Chap I work with who also works as a Special Constable told me that in a briefing a full police officer got an official warning in front of everyone for calling a manhole cover.... a manhole cover.
Apparently this is a derogatory term for women's genitalia...the correct term is "Service hatch".
I'm willing to belive this - circulated on email, happened to a friend of a friend, cites the same example as the political correctness scares of the nineties. Sounds plausible enough.
Stuff like that happens all the time - at college every single one of my tutors says "chalkboard", for that exact reason. We're also not allowed to use the word "brainstorming" any more, in case it offends epileptic people.
Post dated: 14-07-2005, 12:07 AM
Other examples of "pc" cited include:
quote:And following on from "history/herstory", we've also had "Access hatch" for "manhole", "chalkboard" for "blackboard", and this is the best one:
posted
Apparently it's not PC to say 'mentallists' any more - it's got to be 'personallists' now. :roll-eyes: :angruss: :wigs out at imagined sleight on personal freedom: :emails all my friends with fictional 'political correctness gone mad story: :wonders exactly who PMD, skaksi etc think is enforcing all these imaginary rules: :haemorrages brain out nose:
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I caught a taxi earlier today. Nothing unusual in that, obviously. However, as the taxi reached a set of traffic lights, a young black man tried to jay-walk across the road using the gap in front of the taxi I was in. The taxi driver immediately increased his speed, blocking the gap and thereby forcing the man to go around the back of the cab.
The taxi driver then bellowed back to me "If he was white, I would have let him cross". My stunned silence didn't deter him. "Because that's what they do to us, isn't it?" he tried to reason.
Luckily, we'd reached my destination by that point and I left the cab mostly feeling depressed.
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Baa baa homeboy have you any bling? Yes mate, yes mate a diamond ring, A baggy for your best mate Some crack for your ho They're not very pc in Hackney and Bow.
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Yeah. 'Nuff said'.
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