You just can’t make stuff like this up:
David Brent would never approve. ‘Brainstorming’, the buzzword used by executives to generate ideas among their staff, has been deemed politically incorrect by civil servants because it is thought to be offensive to people with brain disorders.
Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term ‘thought-showers’ when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: ‘The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative.’
Sources inside the department said there was concern that the term would cause offence to people with epilepsy as well those with brain tumours or brain injuries.
Welcome to our brave new world of political correctness taken to its illogical extreme…
Well, I had a stroke some years back, and way before my time they called ’em – you got it – brainstorms. Still, I know what people mean when they say brainstorm, and it does not offend me, not should it.
Thought shower is creepy though. Free association leads to thought(crime) + the “shower” they send you to for committing the thoughtcrime.
Just a thought…
This is Belfast, Jay, a city largely inhabited by MOPE’s (most oppressed people ever). The cities unionist/protestant and nationalist/catholic residents never seek to score points on how oppressed they are by the other side (be it about the routes of religious parades, the displays of national flags, or the terminology with which one side or the other calls the province). In reality it’s ethnic minorities for whom Belfast is truly a cold house, I’ve personally walked through attacked Chinese districts in South Belfast. My point in this is that in reaction to 80 years of sectarian division, 30 of which invovled an armed insurrection by the modern day brownshirts of IRA/Sinn Fein, this has become a very politically correct city. Sure a lot of its inhabitants don’t behave that way (and are in fact sectarian spides), but official policy in Belfast and the province of Northern Ireland caters to all sorts of victims, ranging from real victims of terror, to these imaginary victims of slur in the office place. I would not worry until some other part of the United Kingdom that doesn’t have so many “victims” walking around adopts this legislation.
above should read:
“never STOP to seek ways to score points on the other side on how oppressed they are.”
I wrote on this a while back. Worth a link, since we’re on the topic… What Goes Around, Comes Around