In Britain, Barclay's is one of the biggest banks. But they still goofed by "offending" allergy sufferers in one of their TV advertisements. Here is the story (the Brits refer to TV as "the telly"):
"A Barclay's commercial showing a man suffering a bee sting reaction was banned by telly watchdogs yesterday. Nearly 300 people complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the bank ad. It showed the victim fall into a lake then get arrested by cops. But the ASA ruled it was offensive to allergy sufferers. Barclays apologised, saying the ad was meant to be "light hearted".
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The only defect I can see above is a defect in a lot of people's sense of humor
"Honky-Tonk" and "Lesbian" Incorrect
Sometimes it's not even people who censor us these days. It's a machine. And the machine can be even dumber than people. (Excerpt):
"City Councilman Jerry Heimlicher's e-mail account is overrun these days with offers for cheap Viagra and low-interest loans - and he couldn't be happier. Less than a month ago, a program used by the city of Colorado Springs was blocking those seemingly pointless e-mails. But it also stopped messages about honky-tonk music shows and the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado - because "honky" and "lesbian" came up as offensive words. Heimlicher complained in June about not being able to read constituent mail that might include such words. Councilwoman Margaret Radford also complained this month, and two weeks ago the information technology division dropped the filter on Heimlicher's mail.
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Bizarre British Speech Code
A British school head thinks that swearing at teachers is OK -- as long as you don't do too much of it. And look at the fearsome penalty if they DO do too much of it (Excerpt):
"A secondary school is to allow pupils to swear at teachers - as long as they don't do so more than five times in a lesson. A running tally of how many times the f-word has been used will be kept on the board. If a class goes over the limit, they will be 'spoken' to at the end of the lesson. The astonishing policy, which the school says will improve the behaviour of pupils, was condemned by parents' groups and MPs yesterday. They warned it would backfire.
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