# PC terms taken to new heights of stupidity. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 30, 2005, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499 "2005-06-30T12:51:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/21 "2005-06-30T15:24:58Z")
It’s not PC stupidity. It’s _differently intelligent_. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/22 "2005-06-30T15:31:33Z")
Telling PC from non-PC is very easy. Just call Moto it as a name, and see if he starts a piss and moan thread all about it. That way, you know it isn’t about PC, but just the durn right thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/23 "2005-06-30T15:35:11Z")
I think we should just eliminate nouns from the English language. Then it would be impossible to offend anyone! ---
**Author:** ![Ferdechhio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3e96dc/32.png) [@Ferdechhio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferdechhio)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/24 "2005-06-30T15:36:41Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > How about instead of brainstorming or any of the other offensive terms you people have come up with, we just call it DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB! I don’t understand how prostitutes figure into this debate. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/25 "2005-06-30T15:38:20Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > I think we should just eliminate nouns from the English language. Then it would be impossible to offend anyone! I am a noun. I am terribly, terribly offended by you. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/26 "2005-06-30T15:39:26Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > How about instead of brainstorming or any of the other offensive terms you people have come up with, we just call it DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB! Sounds like someone has a case of the Thursdays. ---
**Author:** ![Elza\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Elza\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elza_B)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/27 "2005-06-30T15:56:07Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > How about instead of brainstorming or any of the other offensive terms you people have come up with, we just call it DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB! “Oh, yeah? You hate your job? Well, there’s a support group for that, and it meets at the bar! It’s called EVERYONE!” ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/28 "2005-06-30T16:26:27Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > That would be insensitive to the unemployed. And those of us not currently getting laid. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/29 "2005-06-30T16:35:51Z")
Storm, shower, sleet…I find these weather-related terms to be very offensive to those of us who work indoors. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/30 "2005-06-30T17:11:44Z")
> [@This Year's Model](#): > > I am a noun. I am terribly, terribly offended by you. Actually, I is a pronoun. And “thought shower” is offensive to us brain-washing victims. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2005, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/31 "2005-06-30T17:58:09Z")
I don’t know about other people’s jobs but at my job, I am supposed to ABT. Or Always Be Thinking. If you have to set aside time in the day to actually think, well, there is a problem you might consider. At the end of the session does the leader say “Ok Stop thinking now and get back to work.” And **Slacker** , [here](http://www.despair.com/motivation.html) is the poster I want in my office. (of course surfing the dope all day is not the sign of a highly motivated worker) ---
**Author:** ![Leroy\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ad7895/32.png) [@Leroy\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leroy_Brown)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/32 "2005-07-01T01:37:09Z")
[QUOTE=Malacandra] What you do is, you get a bunch of time-wasting morons with no real work to do to go through the whole dictionary looking for words for people to be virtuously offended by, devise suitably sanitised alternatives, wait for the alternatives to catch on and then rinse and repeat because by now the alternative is itself offensive. [QUOTE] “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought ? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@The\_Hook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hook)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/33 "2005-07-01T03:34:39Z")
_To female coworker:_ PC Male: So… how about that thought shower, eh? _slap_ Hey, I just wanted to know what happened at yesterday’s meeting. Ow! ☹ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/34 "2005-07-01T04:01:55Z")
I understood how gyp was offensive, I understood why Indian giver was offensive, I can even understand why handicap is offensive even though the etymology of the word that offends is incorrect. But I don’t get… this! Gah! Can I get _brainstorm_ back since I object to \*thought shower \* because it is stupid and stupidity offends me? It’s getting to where everything is going to be offensive eventually. So maybe we should just spare ourselves the trouble and pare down all our languages to just one word, ala 1984. Or would that offend someone? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/35 "2005-07-01T04:18:51Z")
I seem to be a verb. And, I thought that indian giver refered to how white people gave land to the natives and then took it away? ---
**Author:** ![Ashes\_Ashes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/db5fbb/32.png) [@Ashes\_Ashes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashes_Ashes)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/36 "2005-07-01T04:26:33Z")
I was always told it was because Native Americans would go back on a deal (I almost said welsh, oooh I’m naughty). Since I stopped using that term when I was eight or so, I have to admit I haven’t studied it. On Rugrats, they say ‘taker-backer,’ I do know that. You know, that the above doesn’t speak well about how I spend my time. Ooh, PowerPuff Girls is on! ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/37 "2005-07-01T04:26:44Z")
Guess I’m offensive to women at least once a month. ---
**Author:** ![La\_Llorona](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@La\_Llorona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/La_Llorona)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/38 "2005-07-01T04:27:08Z")
> [@Ferdechhio](#): > > I don’t understand how prostitutes figure into this debate. The proper term is _sex workers_, and nothin’s free, buddy, not even talking about their figures–or should I say uniquely-gendered anatomy? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/39 "2005-07-01T10:44:54Z")
Guys, you’re missing the fact that this is in Belfast. A civil service where people have to be really careful what they say anyway because of the political tensions. Based on people I know who work there, a fair number of people working there are brain damaged…in the sense of being sectarian bigots. "Thought showers " is stupid, but if they’re not calling their Catholic co-workers Taigs and Fenians either the PC thing might do some good. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2005, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499/40 "2005-07-01T11:10:47Z")
> [@Ashes](#): > > I was always told it was because Native Americans would go back on a deal (I almost said welsh, oooh I’m naughty). Since I stopped using that term when I was eight or so, I have to admit I haven’t studied it. On Rugrats, they say ‘taker-backer,’ I do know that. > > You know, that the above doesn’t speak well about how I spend my time. Ooh, PowerPuff Girls is on! Gift-giving was an important cultural and economic aspect of some Native American societies. The number and quality of the gifts was used as an indication of where they stood with another tribe. Reciprocity was thus important, because if you were giving tribe X your best pelts and tribe X gave you fewer pelts of lesser quality, that was a slap in the face; if tribe X just didn’t have what to give you, you refused their gift. European settlers did not understand this barter system, because to them, a gift was something that was freely given, with no expectation of reciprocation. Thus, “Indian giver” actually meant “someone who gives you a gift with the expectation that it’ll be reciprocated in kind”, not necessarily someone who takes back a gift he gave you; although the latter is the current meaning. [Cite here](http://www.wordorigins.org/wordori.htm). Robin [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pc-terms-taken-to-new-heights-of-stupidity/310499.md?page=3)