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Santa can't Ho Ho Ho down under

News? Or free publicity? Or just a mind-numbingly quiet 'news day'?

HE is an unlikely revolutionary but this Christmas, Santa is a rebel with a claus.
Recruitment firm Westaff - which supplies hundreds of Santas across the country - has told its trainees that the "ho ho ho" phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.
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One would-be Santa has told The Daily Telegraph he was taught not to use "ho, ho, ho" because it was too close to the American slang for prostitute. He also quit.
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Yesterday department stores David Jones and Myers and the Westfield shopping centre chain moved to reassure children, and their parents, that Santa and his customary greeting was part of Christmas's present as well as Christmas's past.
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That's the stupidest thing I've heard in quite a while. Being PC is one thing, but banning Santas from having a jolly "Ho ho ho!" laugh?

Why does society feel the need to cater to the easily offended? Being easily offended is a weakness of character, and should not be encouraged in this way.

Or perhaps I'm being too easily offended by those who are easily offended... Brain hurts now.:boggled:
 
The Daily Telegraph is as fine a piece of cheap-and-nasty fish-and-chip wrapper as any other toilet paper on the this planet. They don't use words like "research" because it has more than one syllable.
 
Shenanigans said:
Why does society feel the need to cater to the easily offended?
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I don't see this so-called 'story' as an example of what is happening in society... more what was happening in one, isolated head adorning the shoulders of some philosophical wannabe
 
Shenanigans said:
That's the stupidest thing I've heard in quite a while. Being PC is one thing, but banning Santas from having a jolly "Ho ho ho!" laugh?

Why does society feel the need to cater to the easily offended? Being easily offended is a weakness of character, and should not be encouraged in this way.

Or perhaps I'm being too easily offended by those who are easily offended... Brain hurts now.
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If you can't figure out that this story's events are an intended and natural consequence of "PC" ideology, you are perfectly normal in your naivete. In other words, incredibly stupid. And, that's exactly the kind of person that society "feels the need" to create. JREF is doing a fine job in helping this process along while pretending to counter it with a few well-placed tsk-tsks.

Cpl Ferro
 
Zep said:
The Daily Telegraph is as fine a piece of cheap-and-nasty fish-and-chip wrapper as any other toilet paper on the this planet. They don't use words like "research" because it has more than one syllable.
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Absolutely agree. If there is any evidence of this I for one would take it up with the store concerned (gee that will have them quaking in their boots!)
 
CplFerro said:
So, that Santa who quit is lying?

Cpl Ferro
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Well, who knows. Perhaps they did do this for "PC" reasons. I've seen examples of individuals (in local council jobs mostly) making decisions based on their own twisted perception of what might be offensive. But nothing as ludicrous as this, or the Baa Baa Black sheep story, or the various "banning of christmas" stories that we get from the sensationalist papers. I certainly wouldn't place any more weight on the sacked guy's version of events than on the employer's. Both are anecdotal and come from people with largely unknown agendas. What isn't unknown is the typical agenda of tabloid papers that jump on anything that can be spun as being "PC gone mad!". Maybe this is the exception to that? There's not enough evidence to say this however, and I'd argue that default assumption should be that this didn't happen the way the paper and the disgruntled employee says it did.

So to be fair, I can't know that the story is bollocks. But it's at least as likely as the store banning "ho ho ho" because it sounds like "ho". You seem pretty eager to conclude that it's definitely true. Don't you want more evidence before deciding that this story coincides with your own world-view of rampant PC?
 
Big Les said:
Well, who knows. Perhaps they did do this for "PC" reasons. I've seen examples of individuals (in local council jobs mostly) making decisions based on their own twisted perception of what might be offensive. But nothing as ludicrous as this, or the Baa Baa Black sheep story, or the various "banning of christmas" stories that we get from the sensationalist papers. I certainly wouldn't place any more weight on the sacked guy's version of events than on the employer's. Both are anecdotal and come from people with largely unknown agendas. What isn't unknown is the typical agenda of tabloid papers that jump on anything that can be spun as being "PC gone mad!". Maybe this is the exception to that? There's not enough evidence to say this however, and I'd argue that default assumption should be that this didn't happen the way the paper and the disgruntled employee says it did.

So to be fair, I can't know that the story is bollocks. But it's at least as likely as the store banning "ho ho ho" because it sounds like "ho". You seem pretty eager to conclude that it's definitely true. Don't you want more evidence before deciding that this story coincides with your own world-view of rampant PC?
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No, I don't, because they don't need to invent anything. I've been tracking this PC crap for long enough to know that nothing is beyond them. The yellow press merely reports it to cater to the love-to-hate-the-craziness crowd who say "Oh, isn't this terrible!" before flipping to the page 3 photo, sort of like the television programmes reporting nonsense going on in Africa so that guilty liberals can think "Oh, isn't that terrible!", throw some money at their conscience, and then switch channels.

Cpl Ferro
 
Fair Dinkum

I won't claim to speak for everybody down here, but I think at least some of this is made up, and I doubt there's any PC involved at all, whatever else may have occurred. Ho simply isn't in common enough usage in Australia to be offensive to anyone, just like drongo means nothing to an American.

Having said that, Sydney has always been a bit up itself, so anything's possible.

Cheers, cobbers.
 
Get the podcast of yesterdays "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" from NPR. Near the end, during one of the quiz segments, Paula Poundstone tries to guess what activity has been prohibited. The other panelists are giving her clues; "Don Imus, Don Imus!" This goes on for some time before the light dawns.
Almost as hilarious as the prohibition itself.....
 
Santa and his elves have an incredible garden in the North Pole. Can you blame him for asking, "Where's my shovel; where's my rake; where's my hoe, hoe, hoe?"
 
CplFerro said:
No, I don't, because they don't need to invent anything. I've been tracking this PC crap for long enough to know that nothing is beyond them. The yellow press merely reports it to cater to the love-to-hate-the-craziness crowd who say "Oh, isn't this terrible!" before flipping to the page 3 photo, sort of like the television programmes reporting nonsense going on in Africa so that guilty liberals can think "Oh, isn't that terrible!", throw some money at their conscience, and then switch channels.

Cpl Ferro
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Psst, Cpl Ferro - take a look at this.

I'm sorry if this sounds like me saying "I told you so", but I did, so that's how it comes across.
 
Big Les said:
Psst, Cpl Ferro - take a look at this.

I'm sorry if this sounds like me saying "I told you so", but I did, so that's how it comes across.
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Dear Les,

Thank you for the eclaircissement. It appears my factual judgement was wrong. PC continues to be evil, and continues to advance, and my factual misinterpretation remains a plausible and, in a certain sense, foredoomed, outcome of PC ideology, but, it will not do to stab at demons that are, in this case, not there.

I am heartened that Australia hasn't gone wholly mad, yet. Thanks again for the correction; bubbles exist to be popped; otherwise one ends up in a lawn chair floating over the Pacific drinking a six pack and wondering why that 747 is flying so low.

Cheers,

Cpl Ferro
 
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