British University bans all offensive words and phrases

Caporegime
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How do they limit and enforce this 'ban'?

presumably a fine?

some local authorities have banned swearing in certain areas under penalty of fine:

see Jonathan Pie's latest video:

The video may be making a good point but probably slightly too much into gratuitous swearing and yes, it is obviously a touch ironic to remove such a video in a thread about banning offensive words.
 
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Soldato
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hmm well

First they took our words, and I said nothing, as I did not use those words......
like mankind.... or fireman.....
does the taxpayer partially fund this university?
 
Soldato
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Does this mean the Women's Institute is now the Non-gender Specific Institute?

Also what is the YMCA now? I guess the SJWs don't even want to open that can of worms :p
 
Soldato
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I saw this on 9gag. I thought it was a joke/made up till I saw this thread. Wow this is pathetic. The worst part about this is that someone got paid to research and implement this.
 
Man of Honour
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What the **** is wrong with people?

Wait, am I allowed to say "people"? Wouldn't want to offend anyone who identifies as a rabbit (other furry creatures are available and are of equal importance)

How long before the word "human" is replaced with the word "huperson" I wonder?

They'll probably make something different up because that's a more effective way to catch people out and falsely accuse them of whatever 'ism' they please.

I wouldn't expect any of them to know that 'man' and 'human' don't even come from the same language and aren't related unless you go back to hypothetical prehistoric languages.

Changing the meaning of the word 'man' was a masterstroke by feminists because it's been so useful for propaganda purposes. Now they can point to references to people in the past and easily mislead people into thinking those references excluded women, thus promoting anger, fear and sexism.
 
Man of Honour
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The tragedy of this is how such stupidity polarises things so much. Take an example I consider valid: using "she" sometimes for a hypothetical person rather than always "he". It doesn't do any harm, remains grammatically correct and doesn't invent weird and contorted terms like "fireperson". When I write documentation and I need to do this, I'll alternate from time to time, just keeping it consistent within any given example. (I.e. if "he" has to connect the monitor to the computer then "he" is the one who then has to turn it on. But later in another example "she" might replace the hard drive). It's a mild rebalancing that normalises the use of the female gender in language and doesn't offend anyone other than hardcore anti-PC brigade (Scorza incoming).

I just use 'they'. It's already in common usage and it's already ungendered and it's already consistent. It simply works. Some people will object to the use of the same word for singular and plural, but it's been used that way for centuries and people manage. English is full of things that aren't always perfectly clear.

Your approach not only retains gender in language but hugely increases the focus on it because it requires keeping count of every time a gendered word is used. It will also offend some people (and not just the "hardcore anti-PC brigade") because they will perceive some imbalance even if you do keep perfect score.

But then instead of something small and reasonable like that, you get a barrage of things like how "waitress" must be replaced with the frankly derogatory (imo) term "server", that housewife should be "consumer" which is dehumanising as **** and all that other long list of nonsense.

I find "server" less annoying because it's more accurate. I use the word "servant" for myself, because that's my job. Euphemisms intended to give a false impression of the job (without actually changing the job) grate on me. They're like spelling out "w..a..l..k" so a dog won't recognise the word 'walk' and that's insulting to a person. I'm employed as a low grade servant with low status and low pay. A flunkey.

I'd prefer to get rid of the word "housewife" myself, although I'm not sure what I'd replace it with. It's far too gendered for me and the masculine version ("housewere") isn't a word I've ever seen used so the genderisation is pretty much total.

So the net result is the whole thing becomes massively polarised by people quite reasonably sick to the back teeth of this crap and defensive proponents who regard everyone criticising them as misogynists or dupes (if female). And the handful of quite reasonable things like using "she" in examples sometimes or "they" for a gender-uncertain singular pronoun when appropriate become hills on which people must die.

Idiocy.

And all too common. There are only ever two mutually exclusive and opposing sides and everyone must pick one and fight the other one!

For a species that's justifiably proud of our ability to understand complexity, we're very prone to massive over-simplification into opposing pairs.
 

V F

V F

Soldato
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Yup, the blackboards at my old school were definitely black, as were the ones in the storage rooms at the college I used to work at. It may surprise the current generation to learn that they were actually called blackboards because of their colour, not because racist :p

"Buy Rustins 250ml Quick Dry Blackboard Paint from Raniforrest's DIY & Tools store"

Then I look on Homebase...

"This Rust-Oleum Black Chalkboard paint creates a tough, scratch-resistant finish, with a writeable/wipe able chalkboard surface on a wide range of substrates. Colour: Black; Size: 750m"

It saddens me that everywhere have to be a 'safe place' these days for the terminally offended, while the rest of us are stepping on eggshells.

Thankfully where I work though, my manager likes South Park, so we do get a bit of office banter without triggering anyone :p

Didn't Clint Eastwood say something about walking on eggshells?

I'm dreading the future this is in full force. A small bit at a time until they have it all. A gagged society. Gurantee it'll be a different place as we once knew it by 2030 or even 2040.
 
Man of Honour
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You sure? I've not seen a black school chalkboard... probably ever. The ones at my school, in the 1990s, were all green. Generally, they all are, since they're no longer made of slate.

When I was at school, there were two types of blackboard. Some were a large wide belt over rollers, effectively doubling the surface area. They weren't made of slate. They were black. Some were a fixed board. They weren't made of slate. They were black. Many materials that aren't slate are black. Black is a good background colour when the writing is white and needs to be seen clearly by a group of people.

The root of the problems isn't the colour black. It's the belief that every reference to black or white is about "race" and it's the belief that black and white make any sense at all as descriptions of people and it's the belief in the whole idea of "race".
 
Soldato
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You sure? I've not seen a black school chalkboard... probably ever. The ones at my school, in the 1990s, were all green. Generally, they all are, since they're no longer made of slate.

I left school in 2002 and all the boards were either black or white depending on the classroom. No one ever even considered the fact that calling them blackboards might be offensive. It never even crossed our minds.
 
Man of Honour
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P.S. I've read that DM article now.

I have a couple of disabilities myself, and the article says that the disabled should be referred to as 'people with disability'. Good grief... really? :rolleyes: I'm fine with just being referred to as disabled.

Get on with life!

I agree with that one.

"Disabled" means "completely useless, having no function and no purpose". I'd be hard pressed to find a more insulting way to refer to a person. It's very weird that such an extreme insult was deliberately chosen as the preferred term in the first place. It's not surprising that it'll be changed repeatedly in order to catch people out so they can be falsely accused of irrational prejudices, but it is surprising that it was chosen to replace "handicapped" which wasn't at all insulting.
 
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