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You Mean "Boffins" Isn't A Term Of Respect?

Posted by timothy on from the and-here-all-this-time-i-was-thinkin' dept.

Wolfcat writes "SCIENTISTS no longer want to be called boffins, saying the name conjures an image of weird men in lab coats. The president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), Chris Fell, today said 'boffin' also suggested scientists were not part of the real world." Look soon for a redacted version of The Register.

4 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. But on the other hand by Genoxide · · Score: 3, Funny

    "SCIENTISTS no longer want to be called boffins, saying the name conjures an image of weird men in lab coats."

    Hmm... when I hear "Boffin" I think of Hobbits.. not scientests!

  2. According to MY version of the OED... by tgv · · Score: 3, Funny

    A boffin is "a person engaged in scientific (esp. military) research".

    So, if you're a genuine pacifist scientist, you might oppose, but otherwise it's just another way of making sure that in 20 years time scientists will oppose to being described as "scientists", as it will have some negative connotations.

    Imagine, this is on "FASTS"'s top ten issues for 2003. I guess one of the other issues is: what to do when you have too much spare time.

  3. I can see the Register guys scrambling by Frantactical+Fruke · · Score: 4, Funny

    Going

    s/boffins/funny men in white lab coats/

    all over their database...

  4. In Other News... by CTD · · Score: 3, Funny

    The West Coast activist group, Californians Remove Air's Sensless Simplifications, has begun to lobby the Californian senate to pass a resolution banning the public use of the word 'air', supporting the use of 'atmosphere' as a better term.

    "We feel that people don't take the levity of the atmosphere serious enough." said Nancy Pender, President of CRASS, "They are always saying things like "The sky is falling." and yet they still pollute the atmosphere. We seek to force them to use a larger word, so they have to think harder before they pollute."

    *****

    This is stupid. 'Scientist' is now going to have to be filed next to 'Sanitation Engineer' as another politically correct job description? Phoey! I think it's a conspiracy. Those eggheads never stop to pull their lame brains out of books and computers! Someone must have formed a PAC around them while the geek squad was not looking. I suspect the Barvarians...

    --
    Grimwell - old, cranky, mean, obsessive