[budster101]

Nitpicking brainstorm sweeps across Wales

Media excitement was recently aroused by the claim that staff of the Welsh Development Agency have been told not to use the words "nitpicking" and "brainstorming", because these are offensive to minorities.

Five hundred WDA employees were sent - at a cost to taxpayers of £17,500 - for training in "equality and diversity issues". On these courses they were told that, under the terms of the Racial Equality Act, they had to avoid using the term "nitpicking", because it originated from the practice of examining the hair of African slaves for lice. The word "brainstorming" is also banned because it is considered "insulting to people suffering from mental illness".

There is however a twist to this example of po-faced political correctness. If you type the words "nitpicking" and "Welsh Development Agency" into an internet search engine, one of the first items that come up is a report from Eurada, a body that enables regional development agencies across the EU to "engage in dialogue with the European Commission". The report recommends that Brussels should do everything it can to co-ordinate the activities of the EU's regional agencies "at a Community level". But it insists that this must not lead to "administrative nitpicking".

Among the members of Eurada endorsing this recommendation is the Welsh Development Agency. It must surely be now awaiting prosecution for an offence under the Racial Equality Act.

Nice. PC has been taken to an all new low. Discuss.

Source:

[yukon]

It's the meaning of the statement rather than the history. Ever been gypped out of anything? Don't mention it around the descendants of Indian nomadic groups. Possibly never thought about that, and there's probably a thousand other words like it that originally meant something bad to people who concidered something else bad in general. "Nitpicking" sounds entirely neutral (as if there are no white people with parasites), and "brainstorming" being against people with mental illness is pretty extreme since it was never slang (that I know of) and a storm isn't necessarily a bad thing (while mental illness generally is).

If you listen to this kind of thing, you can get pretty confused, like when the descendant of one of the the previously indigenous North American peoples complained to me that the term "Native American" was derogatory since the word "native" was somehow synonymous with negative stereotypes....the definition of "native" matches the circumstance, I can barely indicate who the hell I'm talking about without the word. People can be offended, their right to be if they want to. If a statement has malice, then it's justified, otherwise it's pointless and should be disregarded.

[Apple Pro Underwear]

NEWS FLASH:

In today's complicated world, there are more important things that money should be spent on. helping the homeless, educating our children, breaks for the working classs. THIS IS LIKE TOSSING MONEY INTO TOILET.

[Nivag]

the school i went to we was not allowed to say 'blackboard' or 'blackmail'
it was prime-time late 1980s gone mad, everyone had to be PC tree huggers or you got expelled!

[Railroader]

I once almost lost my job when I was attending university because I said "reneged". They thought I was being racist against blacks/African-Americans.

After I calmly explained to them that it meant "renegotiated", a few calmed down. But a few hardliners still wanted my head.

PC obviously can go to far.

[budster101]

Zealots like that are like the racists of old. They have become what they hate.

[Eriamjh]

I'm dumbfounded at this headline.

Whoops. I think I just offended someone dumb!

[Zimphire]

And here I thought this was a thread about the PL.

[budster101]

Half of MacNN! Off with your mouse.

[JHromadka]

That is the most ridiculous use of PC I have ever heard... until the next ridiculous PC use.

[ghporter]

Watch for what happens if you use a less common word like "niggardly." It means "stingy," usually in the extreme. According to Houghton-Mifflin, it comes from the "Middle English nigard, perhaps from nig, stingy person, of Scandinavian origin." Just try it and see what happens.

People get offended by what offends THEM. My innocent speech should not cause a problem.

While "nitpick" did come from the practice of looking for louse eggs (nits) in people's hair, I have never seen it associated with slavery in any way. As nits are fairly tiny, the meaning-to be concerned with tiny, trivial details-makes plenty of sense.

To ban "brainstorming" because mentally challenged people could be offended is taking things to a silly extreme. The term means to consider a number of possibilities in a concentrated session, often with multiple participants. It says NOTHING about the sophistication of depth of the possible range of potential solutions. I recall a work program for mentally challenged people where I worked. The administrators sat a group down in the food court before the restaurants opened and they discussed ways to make their tasks-table cleaning and trash management-work more smoothly. That group brainstormed quite thoroughly, and came up with two very useful ideas involving the way the tasks were accomplished and where supplies were prepositioned. Gee, I guess they shouldn't have done that, because those poor mentally challenged people could have been insulted-No, wait! They felt empowered by participating... I guess I just don't understand.

[yukon]

I'd say that the people complaining are just doing so to complain.

Don't forget, this is a government sending out this list, these are public servants getting the list ("public servant", sounds offensive....), the government can't be offensive to anyone but crazy looking anarchists (the good looking ones are hired by the party and never heard from again).

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by yukon

I'd say that the people complaining are just doing so to complain.

Well said, and quoted for emphasis.

[JoshuaZ]

I've run into a few people who have gotten offended when someone has said 'I got gipped".

In high school, late 90's, somehow the trend of saying 'thats Jewish' or 'I got Jewed' was a trend. I'm sure it really offend the 3 Jewish kids we had out of the 1800 of us, because they didn't seem to care.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Better then freedom fries.

[budster101]

I can't recall where I heard this but it cracked me up.

"I'm saving up to be Jewish." It seems like something Rodney Dangerfield would have said...