Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women

Big Don

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Those that are offended by this are trying to be offended, and therefore deserve to be offended
 

Steel Tiger

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Those that are offended by this are trying to be offended, and therefore deserve to be offended

Very good point.

This whole is, apart from being just sad, a bit strange. Ho is just not part of the Australian vernacular (even if some countries do view us as just a southern hemisphere US) unless you are talking about gardening.

The company at the centre of this is Westaff, a US employment firm. It just sounds to me like some young go getter has come out to Australia to get to know the business and has made this recommendation based on his own language slang set.

Of course, I'm probably wrong and it is just another sad, sorry small-minded person thinking they are somehow protecting the world from something.:(
 

Carol

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FearlessFreep

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And now it is reality :confused:

I just figured that those that took offense can’t spell.

If that is not the case then

Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam needs to be renamed
Don Ho cannot sell records anymore until he changes his name
HO gauge train sets should be pulled from the shelves
The symbol for Holmium (Ho) needs to be changed
Gung ho
heave-ho
Heigh-ho
ho-hum

All are offensive

I am not sure if hobo is allowed however or Hoboken for that matter but I guess I wil just have to wait and see.


Ho boy...
 

JBrainard

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What's next, will we have to rename garden implements?

I was told at work that I can't call wire cutters "dikes" anymore. If you are offended by a word because you don't understand the context in which a word is being used, who is to blame? The offended party.
 

Kreth

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I was told at work that I can't call wire cutters "dikes" anymore. If you are offended by a word because you don't understand the context in which a word is being used, who is to blame? The offended party.
Yep, and I remember reading a few years ago that a group was trying to ban the use of master/slave terminology for IDE devices in computers. :rolleyes:
 

JBrainard

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Yep, and I remember reading a few years ago that a group was trying to ban the use of master/slave terminology for IDE devices in computers. :rolleyes:

I'm just waiting for the powers that be to say that calling electrical connectors "male" or "female" is sexist. Sure, it's kind of crass if you think about it, but nobody thinks about it that way.
 

Steel Tiger

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I was told at work that I can't call wire cutters "dikes" anymore. If you are offended by a word because you don't understand the context in which a word is being used, who is to blame? The offended party.

Yep, and I remember reading a few years ago that a group was trying to ban the use of master/slave terminology for IDE devices in computers. :rolleyes:


And then there is the group of truly radical feminists, a few years back, who wanted History changed to Herstory because it supposedly excluded women. From listening to them you got the impression that they thought the word meant 'his story'. :rolleyes:
 

thardey

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In high school (right as the term "politically correct" was coined) the teacher passed out a paper telling us that the following terms shouldn't be used in formal writing anymore:

Waitress => Waiter/waitstaff
Stewardess => Steward
Actress => Actor

etc.

Also, unless we were talking about a specific person of which the gender was know/relevant, we were to only use plural pronouns, because the plural gave the option of being neutral without resorting to using "it" to refer to a person.

Personally, I was/am all in favor of using "it", just to show how weird all of this has become. I can't wait for the Latin-language countries to try to become gender-neutral!
 

crushing

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And now it is reality :confused:

I just figured that those that took offense can’t spell.

If that is not the case then

Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam needs to be renamed
Don Ho cannot sell records anymore until he changes his name
HO gauge train sets should be pulled from the shelves
The symbol for Holmium (Ho) needs to be changed
Gung ho
heave-ho
Heigh-ho
ho-hum

All are offensive

I am not sure if hobo is allowed however or Hoboken for that matter but I guess I wil just have to wait and see.

So what's a ho-hum then? Does it have anything to do with a kazoo?
 

Carol

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Personally, I was/am all in favor of using "it", just to show how weird all of this has become. I can't wait for the Latin-language countries to try to become gender-neutral!

They already are trying to become gender-neutral. Online, it is very common to see the at-symbol used as a way of meaning both -o and -a.

example:
Amig@s instead of Amigas y Amigos or just Amigos.
 

Tez3

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We don't use it here either, if we hear it on a film or television programme we tend to smile because it sounds funny on things like Jerry Springer etc!

A friend of mine who was working in a NATO kindergarten ( for the kids of service personnel not for NATO servicepeople lol though....) horrified the American staff when she, in front of the children no less, called the thing you use to rub out pencils marks with,....a rubber! She was hauled up in front of the boss and made to repeat it's an eraser, it's an eraser. Yeah she said "a rubber".
 

thardey

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They already are trying to become gender-neutral. Online, it is very common to see the at-symbol used as a way of meaning both -o and -a.

example:
Amig@s instead of Amigas y Amigos or just Amigos.


Great.

L@s Nin@s. yeah, that'll work. Of course, If I waited a couple of years, it would take me half as long to learn my Spanish verbs!
 

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