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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.

1 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Given the obvious root... by Doctor+Hu · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Hmm. Possibly, but... my dictionary gives the origin as being military slang, and although the military are not exactly well-known for being polite in their everyday language, boffin's been around for quite a while; I'm pretty sure I can recall it being used back in the 1950's, at a time when the 'f' word was still very taboo in regular society. I'm not convinced that such a vulgar coinage would have leaked out into general use (the less extreme counter-example of "bumf" notwithstanding).

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