Can you really not say "brown" for suntanned anymore?

[Lightsfall]

My friend works for a smallish company.

After a couple of week's leave she returned to work tanned and someone told her she was "brown", meaning it as a compliment.

Boss pulled them to one side and told them you can't be calling people brown, it must be "tanned".

I'm definitely not a PC gone mad type, and try to keep up with changing language, so as not to offend, but I didn't know this one.

Ridiculous. I'm convinced some people make these up, thinking they're pc but really they're thick as mince.

What? Stupid snowflakey crap gone mad.

😂

Wouldn't surprise me tbh. I remember the whole not being allowed to say black bags, had to be refuse sacks🙄 I mean FFS

Totally insane but not surprising.

When I was growing up my grandmother used to say “you’re brown as a bug” if we were tan in the summer. We thought it was hilarious.

Gosh yes - and the whole 'coffee without milk' palaver!!!

It's just ridiculous nowadays how seemingly normal words are seen as so offensive

By gum there are some dimwits about.

Whatever next?

I would go with burned, brown or tanned are both euphemisms for flirting with skin cancer.

FFS

If you want some real outrage, you need the original lyrics to "the sun has got his hat on". Who was he tanning, up in Timbuctoo? I can't quote it here, it would be deleted at once!

And anyway, "tanned" is not a totally innocent word either, and needs a trigger warning: the threat of being "tanned" might bring back painful memories for people over a certain age.

Poor old Enid Blyton: in her day, being "burnt brown" was essential for good health. Now it's a risk of skin cancer.

Thank god you can say baa baa black sheep again. Remember you had to say rainbow sheep 🙄

Yes, I thought most of that nonsense, blackboards, etc had gone. I'm sure none of it ever came about because anyone in one of the groups supposedly offended was actually offended.

My duel heritage children are sometimes told - you've got a nice suntan. They have to explain it's their race so I do think it's important to be mindful of how we speak.

Nah, I'm woke as hell and I've never heard of that being a thing!

How ridiculous!

My kids have lots of Asian friends and they say they are brown, as in not black or white. I have checked with them and this is the accepted and normal terminology. Furthermore, I would say to my Asian friend after a holiday - you are so brown - and she would say - yes it was really hot. This would not be considered at all racist.

Never heard this. My best friend is mixed raced. She says brown for sun tan.

But some people do just tan vastly more than others. My (white) children look more tanned in the winter than many of their paler friends look after a summer holiday abroad. Just playing outside at school on a nice spring day turns them golden, and people comment. I'm no more playing with their risk of skin cancer than anyone else who lets their children play outside (ie all school attending children) is.

It all depends on context - the same word can be innocent, or insulting, or witty even, depending on how it's used. Brown is a shade of lots of things, not just skin. If it's used to refer to a someone tanning with no relevance to race then I don't see how it can be insulting.

Ridiculous

Just don't say their tan is orange...

Oh for pity’s sake. I mean your boss, not you, OP. When is this woke nonsense ever going to end.
I’m going to go round now and point out to everybody how brown I am.

I'm pretty sure the coffee without milk thing is a myth. When I was a student journalist in the late Seventies journalists from the red tops would literally stand around in bars inventing PC gone mad bollocks like this about Ken Livingstone