To be exasperated with posters who refer to ‘the terminally offended’?

[BernardBlacksBreakfastWine]

Been lurking on a couple of threads recently and I just get so frustrated by posters who use these phrases:

”People are offended by EVERYTHING these days.”

”Snowflake”

”The terminally/permanently offended”

etc

It’s just so empty and pointless; you could equally have used these phrases against, say, people objecting to page three photos a few years ago (and, to be fair, some of these posters probably did).

People get so angry when prejudice is pointed out to them. You just know they’re aching to say “This is political correctness gone mad!” but they at least know that’s been discredited, so they pull out one of those other meaningless catchphrases.

AIBU to wish that people could actually articulate a reason that people shouldn’t be offended by insidious prejudice rather than just slinging pointless insults?

@CurlewKate right so you agree that this phenomenon of some people being too easily offended does exist, but you'll only accept it has happened once, until more examples are explicitly mentioned in this thread?

I'll give you another example, only because I found it funny. Let me know if you think the person was being oversensitive or not. Colleague A created some promotional artwork for a kids' product with an ancient Egyptian theme (cartoon Mummies & pyramids etc). Colleague B said we needed to check around the company for anyone with Egyptian nationality who we could say was the originator of this work, otherwise we would be committing cultural appropriation and it would be offensive to ancient Egyptians.

Am I the only person who - before this thread - has never heard anyone say "terminally offended" ?
Surely the phrase is "permanently offended", is it not ?

I agree with you OP - it's annoying - people who claim that others are offended simply because those others don't agree with them. They haven't said they're offended, or that the view in question is inherently offensive, just that they don't agree.

That does sound sad. What a shame.

But this is not really what I meant; when people toss out the term ‘permanently offended’ on here they have no idea of the actual poster’s life or situation.

@Underthinker -I'm a little confused. Are you talking about-as I thought you were- situations where someone was somehow reprimanded, or when things were changed to accommodate "wokeness"? Or are you talking about random things that people say and which have no effect on anything because the person who has misunderstood the situation. Because I can see that it would be very important to make sure that your ancient Egyptian stuff was accurate, and didn't make the people concerned look foolish, or misrepresented. I cannot see how anyone would take seriously the idea of getting an Egyptian to pretend to have made it.

@MyFridgeIsRed What sort of things does your poor relative worry about? Has she sought mental health support?

Actually there was a previous incident where a transgender woman, later discovered to be a pervert, complained about tube staff saying they didn't sound like a woman and contacted the mayor about it and about wanting the end of the ladies and gentlemen announcement because it was evidence of yet more discrimination. Although that was actually perversion masquerading as offended, it nevertheless brought about the end of the ladies and gentlemen announcement.

Examples I think fit the description include a non Muslim person disgusted at the insensitivity of colleagues eating in the lunch room where a person present was fasting.
Being asked to swap phrases such as 'have you seen/did you hear about' to 'are you aware' in case someone has sight or hearing loss.
Much discussion on how to invite people to be seated when one of the number was a wheelchair user who would not be transferring to a seat, rendering the usual ways to say it potentially offensive.
Being told its inconsiderate not to refer to oneself as 'cis'.
I'd be interested to know if people think these are circumstances where reprimands were justified for non compliance?

It would be super easy for you to do that for yourself if you wanted to see many, many examples.

But - if you're suggesting you haven't seen any, despite (I presume?) reading many threads on here, whatever is the point of showing you the same information again? If you failed to notice a single incident before, why would you suddenly be enlightened now? Why should people find things on your behalf and present them to you?

@CurlewKate I haven't said anything about 'wokeness'. I'm interested in the difference in views between one camp who think the larger problem is lots of people now have offensive views, and the other camp who think the more pressing issue is that many people are too easily offended. I was attempting to provide examples of the latter because you seemed to doubt they existed. I could equally come up with examples of people being unnecessarily rude or offensive if someone denied that ever happened.

@5128gap "Examples I think fit the description include a non Muslim person disgusted at the insensitivity of colleagues eating in the lunch room where a person present was fasting.
Being asked to swap phrases such as 'have you seen/did you hear about' to 'are you aware' in case someone has sight or hearing loss.
Much discussion on how to invite people to be seated when one of the number was a wheelchair user who would not be transferring to a seat, rendering the usual ways to say it potentially offensive.
Being told its inconsiderate not to refer to oneself as 'cis'

I don't think "disgusted" is an appropriate word. And I think it's unlikely that anyone should be reprimanded unless there is more backstory. But I do think that it would be politer to avoid all those terms. Why wouldn't you? Makes no difference to you and might make someone else's life a little easier.

That's classic Mumsnet right there! 😂👏👏

Where do you draw the line? Do we now have to consider literally everything we say before we actually say it to make sure it's wholly 'inclusive'? That's heading towards compelled speech and it's a very dangerous road to go down.

That's not compelled speech.

What that coke addled bellend Gove is chuffing on about in parliament rn, passing laws to say that everyone who disagrees with him is an extremist, that's compelled speech.

That's probably why she said heading towards

I'm not suggesting there were formal reprimands, I'm talking about the 'reprimands' referred to by some as 'calling it out' that can make the person who has committed the percieved misdemeanor feel embarrassed or as though they have caused distress.

In the first example the person said they were 'disgusted by the insensitivity' of colleagues eating. Personally I don't think staff eating in a place designated for the purpose, in the presence of a person fasting who themselves didn't mind at all, deserved to be called insensitive and inspiring disgust.

The second and third examples, no, it doesn't hurt to change language if requested to do so by a person who may be effected by it. But it does hurt if everyday figures of speech are to be suddenly deemed offensive by someone who arbitarily decides they have authority to speak on behalf of people who are not them; then make others feel bad for not using phrases they have designated as the right ones. (And what actually is the less offensive way to invite people to sit down? No one came up with one!)

The last example, refer to oneself as 'cis'..why wouldn't you...? I don't want to derail the thread, so suffice to say, because I don't want to.

Correct.

Great post 👏🏻

See, even though I wouldn’t have had any objection to “ladies and gentlemen”, I think you are massively over blowing this.

A customer, who identifies as non-binary, complained about gendered greetings. Were I the service provider, I’d probably want to know if a small subset of customers do not like the way in which they are greeted, particularly if it could be very easily modified (“good morning everybody”) but ultimately it’s up to the provider to decide.

As to it being sent via Twitter - that’s often how customer service queries are handled these days.

In any event, customers make complaints regarding all manner of things, all the time - and they’ll range from extremely valid to less so - I just can’t get worked up about a customer making a complaint.

@EvangelicalAboutButteredToast I think t depends on how people react to being told that they've put their foot in it or used outdated language. "Oh, shit, really? I'll remember that!" against "It's what I've always said and I'm going to keep on saying it."

For reference, I am probably in the top 2/3% of Mumsnet by age.

@ThisQuickFinch You think I'm "massively overblowing" it to say this is an example of someone being quick to take offence? The guy said he was "alarmed and uncomfortable" by the phrase "ladies and gentlemen".

I see more posts from people who respond aggressively to polite correction (as in the example quoted), than I do from people who are “offended” by the use of an incorrect or outdated term.

It’s weird that those people see it as more offensive to be told they’ve said the wrong thing, than it was for them to say it in the first place. It’s like they believe they have a right to be racist (/misogynistic/ageist/homophobic etc) but nobody else has a right to call them out on it.

I think the think that makes you "over blow" it is that it went nowhere. If the train guard was sent to a reprogramming camp or sacked or something, then that's different. But he wasn't. There was a complaint. He was asked about it. That was the sum total of his involvement. Of course a complaint has to be investigated.

There was a video a while ago along the same lines. A man was being detained for shoplifting and a woman was screaming ‘let him go, this is racist, you’re only doing this because he’s black’. Hmm, nothing to do with the fact he’s just nicked a load of stuff then?!!

Exactly this. A person (whose sensitivities are clearly different to my own) made a customer service complaint - just like hundreds of thousands of other people do on a daily basis.

If the complaint is perceived to be “woke” though, then it runs the risk of becoming tabloid, click-bait fodder, and people get needlessly worked up over it.