Don't say 'two fat ladies': Traditional British bingo calls scrapped for fear of offence
We read:
"A council which has banned the bingo phrases ‘two fat ladies’ and ‘legs eleven’ in case players are offended and take legal action was criticised for being politically correct yesterday.
Sudbury Town Council in Suffolk fears it could be sued by overweight players or women who find the terms sexist. It is has advised bingo caller John Sayers, 75, to revert to using the number ‘88’ instead of ‘two fat ladies’ and 11 for ‘legs eleven’.
But since the ban, numbers at the game in the town hall have fallen as players boycott the Monday sessions. Usually more than 100 play each week, raising £3,000 for charities annually. Many go instead to a Tuesday afternoon game in nearby Great Cornard, outside Sudbury, where traditional calls are still used.
Source
Bingo calling traditionally has an element of humor and it is that which was being attacked by officialdom.
7 comments:
Here we go again! - the previous (above) case of PC'ness in the States does not get a comment from "2:50 AM", but the next case because it is Britain sees him calling the whole country a "dying nation" and "gutless", even tho' the same account reports resistence to this case of PC'ness. However, it would seem the PC sensitivity comes from people taking advantage of it to make money out of it by suing at every opportunity.
Count the number of PC'ization stories coming from the US and compare them to the number coming from Britain. That's not to say the US is PC-free. Far from it, but even we're not that whacky.
While I understand how 'two fat ladies' could be insulting, how does 'legs eleven' insult anyone? Could someone provide an appropriate British English to American English translation please?
Forget it Brian. They're British. Even they don't understand the things they do.
How do you count all the PC stories - any selection is random especially here.
"legs eleven" is not in itself being regarded as unsuitable.
I think the anti-britishness repeatedly expressed here is getting pathological and doesn't say much for the sanity of americans posting here (or maybe it's just that one tedious person).
Anon 546am: I don't think its 'anti-britishness' (points for inventing a new word), but an anti-political correctness vibe here. I am very pro-British, but all of these decisions taken recently in the UK so as to nor offend this group or that group appear to me that the British people have thrown common sense out the window in an effort to appease the lords and ladies of the school of politically correct thought police.
Once again the Brits are being treated here as a group that thinks and acts the same. The reports themselves indicate that there is much opposition to the PCism and maybe that's why it gets reported and picked up here. It can only be an impression from the media as to how PC a country seems to be.
However, it's pretty obvious that the media look for such PC controversy to "excite" the public, and even hype it up for effect.
Post a Comment