Here’s an interesting story from England about words not to use if you want to be more clearly understood by your constituents. More interesting to me than the actual point of the story is contained in the final paragraphs:
The association sent its letter after reports that one town council had told staff to use the term “thought showers” instead of “brainstorming.”
Officials at Tunbridge Wells council in southern England felt brainstorming might offend people with epilepsy, a condition that involves periodic electrical storms inside the brain.
However, the National Society for Epilepsy said it had surveyed its members and they did not find the term offensive.
Completely ridiculous. Who in their right mind has so much time on their hands that they invent new phrases like “thought showers” because they assume that the established word “brainstorm” will be offensive to people with epilepsy!? Thought showers sounds more like some positive sounding method of disbursing information in a 1984-eqsue story.
Part of the problem the western society has now is this overwhelming urge to not offend. It’s gone so far that we now stick up for others in what we assume may offend them. Instead of assuming that something will offend someone… maybe we could ask? Seems reasonable to me.
