OT: Very PC

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I asked a question on the Megasquirt forum - which is US based. Said what I needed for this particular setting was an idiot's guide. Somehow it got altered to a 'confused guide'. ;-)

[Adrian C]

Phoning and surfing around for an insurance quote the other day, I ended up speaking to someone that asked me which comparision site I had found them. I replied 'goconfused.com*'. lol, that phone call didn't end well ...

I did often think the tone of initally US focused 'dummies guide to {whatever}' and matching 'complete idiots guide to {whatever}' series of books would be found insulting and a bit of a marketing faux pas to us british consumers. "Hey, if ya feel stupid, buy this!!!"

But, watching TV now - That's evident in much of the entertainment programming out there. We've got dummies guide to everything there.

• - yes, it exists - but nothing except a parked page of links

[David in Normandy]

There is an advert on French TV at the moment for Renault cars with white bunny-like creatures that drive a car over a cliff due to not using the GPS as intended. The advert says the it isn't for "cretins" LOL. Not a PC word in English.

[Andy Dingley]

"Cretin" is a perfectly PC word in English - cretinism is an iodine deficiency and there's not much other way to describe it.

[Ericp]

Delving around in the innards of a PC game some years ago, I found an enormous table of names that people were not allowed to call themselves in multiplay games. It must have taken up 10% of the space. I think it was one of the Age of Empires games.

What was fascinating was seeing what each nation considered insulting and wondering how much it had cost to compile the list in the first place and integrate it into the game.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The one that stayed with me was the Rolls Royce Silver Mist.

Apparently this cracked the Germans up.

[geoff]

While I lived in Germany I saw the short lived coming and going of Cussons "Irisher Mist" and a liqueur of the same name

Both were on the shelves just long enough for me to get a sample for posterity

[Terry Casey]

Ah yes, I see what you mean ...

saw a German tug on the Maas in Rotterdam once which, unfortunately, turned away before I could get the camera on it ...

The name on the stern, in large capital letters, was GUTE FAHRT ...

[geoff]

Yeah must be something in the water

[Roberts]

[Andy Burns]

Roberts wrote (or mangled the attributions!)

We took joy when our rather staid physics master explained and performed the Kundt's tube experiment.

[AlanD]

Best thing to do with a Renault really.

[Reentrant]

SWMBO, a former teacher, got into trouble for obscenity or somesuch after telling a rowdy pupil to stop "acting the prick".

Her defence was that the phrase derives from horse-riding. A prick is a training whip used to control young horses and ignoring it is "acting the prick".

She received an apology, though of course she didn't know that's what it meant beforehand ...

[Peter Twydell]

In message , Terry Casey writes

If your vehicle registration is KUT or LUL, you'll cause a great deal of amusement driving it in the Netherlands.

[robgraham]

There was a somewhat erudite article I was shown many years ago in an equally erudite magazine about the variations in the Spanish language throughout South America and Spain itself. Seemingly there's a word for skin that in part of this language empire is either very close to or the same as that for the female part - so you don't go there, get confused and tell the young lady she has a beautiful golden ****.

Rob

[Adrian C]

Oh dear.

[Peter Scott]

and the Epinus condenser!

[Huge]