BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 10:41 PM

I was going to thank someone for adding a little color to old Mudcat, but then got to thinking ---

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Rowan
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:49 PM

At work I had to use emails about various formalities and the usual shorthand for Head(s) of School was "HoS" (singular) and "HoSs" (plural). Never gave any problem until about 4 years ago, when I noticed that, whenever I was typing away at an email message that used either term, it displayed a brilliant red colour; worse, I couldn't get it transmitted.

I then found out that an upgrade in Eudora had included filters that indicated various levels of "offensive" words with red type and prevented transmission of emnails containing them until you burrowed into Preferences and disabled the filter. A while later I asked why "HoS" should be regarded as offensive and found out the association from a much younger and more streetwise lad than I. Eudora is American and the term was an American import that hadn't previously appeared on my radar. I'm now much wiser.

The story that started the thread got a minor mention in my rural locality but we just put it down to "tabloid beatup nonsense", of which we get quite a lot but can easily ignore as always irrelevant and usually fiction.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:18 PM

and just WHEN did the short slang word for 'whore' become the accepted one? I simply will not curtail my use of ANY perfectly good word...like 'gay'...simply because one group uses it for another purpose. I have VERY little occasion to use 'niggardly', but I will if it arises.

Perhaps I ought to start a campaign to explain to the media where 'funky' came from....*sly grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: JennieG
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:39 PM

Sorry Emma, I didn't look first - by gosh it's funny. Unfortunately we have some folk here in Oz who are bending over backwards trying not to offend some groups of people, and in doing so manage to offend everyone else!

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:43 AM

JennieG - that's my link above - a hoot!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 07:42 AM

Ever considered that "Ho Ho Ho" might be offensive to gardeners?

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: JennieG
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 06:50 AM

There is a funny clip on You Tube - a bloke reading a politically correct version of "The Night Before Christmas", it's a hoot. Search for blue collar Christmas.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 05:32 AM

Grab said
"I had a boss once who complained about the word "novel", as used in the phrase "a novel system for ..." in a specification I wrote about a new way of doing things. Turns out he'd only ever heard it used in the context of sarky comments like "well *that's* a novel idea". Sigh. I enlightened him with a half-dozen links from dictionary sites, but I changed the spec because I was clearly writing at a level above most manageroids"
That's the English Language for you. It changes. (Like the 'folk process'). And if you want to communicate you need to know the meaning the word has for your hearers / readers. Or you risk confusing or offending.
So it pays to be open minded, to listen if someone tells you an expression offends them, and to explain why an expression offends you. E.g. from the background of my white English childhood the 'n' word is 'not very nice', not something I would call someone, but not sickeningly offensive. So I quoted it when discussing the change in the rhyme "Eenie meenie" between when my schooldays and my daughters, and Azizi explained how it made her feel. So I won't use it again, even though when we used it back then it was just a rhyme. And if words are so emotive, then maybe similar sounding words will be tainted by them.

On the original subject, it depends on the tone of voice. And some children can be scared, so Santa's should be sensitive.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Emma B
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 04:54 AM

I've been getting a bit hot under the collar recently about barely concealed rascism etc masquerading under 'PC gone mad' headlines - but here's one that me laugh

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 10:25 AM

Maybe it's because there are more people who are generally fairly ignorant, and haven't been exposed to much alternative information by a media which wants compliant consumers and serfs...not independent thinkers.

My impression is that very few people are idiots, and that most people aren't stupid either. If given genuinely inspired and excellent leadership, most people turn out to be surprisingly intelligent and capable. They are not getting such leadership in mainstream society. They are being enouraged NOT to think, but to conform and consume. They are being MADE, in effect, quite stupid by the $ySStem all around them, despite the great natural potential which they were born with, and that is the tragedy of this society.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Nov 07 - 09:29 AM

The downward tendency of the media may well be due to the fact that there are more idiots than savants.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Louie Roy
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 05:34 PM

In Portland Oregon there is a Hoe Saw and manafacturie Company and at our saw filing conventions one of our favorite saying we were going down to the Hoe House They always had a large supply of Booze

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: EBarnacle
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 03:32 PM

There were three ho's from Winnepeg...

Subject: add: Three times a lady
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 02:46 PM

MisHEARD thread titles, where a thread title pops a song into your head:


Three times a lady
aS SUNG BY lIONEL rICHIE

Thanks for the times
That you've given me
The memories are all in my mind
And now that we've come
To the end of our rainbow
There's something
I must say out loud....

CHO:
You're once, twice
Three times a lady
Yes you're once twice
Three times a lady
And I love you

When we are together
The moments I cherish
With every beat of my heart
To touch you to hold you
To feel you to need you
Theres nothing to keep us apart


@pop
SH


~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 02:27 PM

So, PoppaGator, for your Christmas present this year, we're going to let you pose with Little Hawk. We'll title it "Canada Meets Cajun." Quite the privilege, hey?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: MarkS
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 02:05 PM

Everybody who has ever published a cookbook with different varities of "tart" better be careful.
And lets change the name of the State (can't bring myself to say it) which has Boise as its captial! A woman from there could offend herself just be saying where she is from.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Jim Krause
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 12:36 AM

What's all this about garden tools? I think garden tools are quite nice as gifts. Ever gardener should own a hoe. Why I've used a hoe many a time in weeding the tomatoes. And finding a perfectly useful, good garden tool offensive is just beyond imagination. What's next, rakes perhaps?

Why there's another another thing that's bound to offend some one, and another tune about garden tools as well; The Rakes of Mallow. Mercy sakes, whatever is the world coming to?


Jim Krause

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Nov 07 - 12:20 AM

You got it, Gurney. ;-) That's exactly how it works. The media have inflicted every form of lowest gutter and ghetto trash mentality on people in their constant search for controversy and higher ratings. Why? Because the commercial advertisers give their business to the station that attracts the most attention from the viewers, and the station is funded BY the advertisers, and viewers are drawn to sensationalism and controversy like flies to fresh manure. Therefore sensationalism and bad taste are technically "good business".

Anyone can see where that eventually leads with just a wee bit of thought.

I'd call it the Decline and Fall of the New Roman Empire, accomplised primarily, in this case, by television.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: blind will
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 11:21 PM

They can get rid of "Ho! Ho! Ho!" The sooner the better they eradicate this word from society.But if they ban "Bah Humbug" I'll be very offended!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 10:44 PM

Blame the media.
Under-educated people invent words or terms for private in-language (hey, I just invented one!) and the media enthusiastically promotes it.
The thin-skinned then enthusiastically complain about it.
The politically-correct jump on the bandwaggon.
The "petty tyrants, clad in a little brief authority", ban it.
The media enthusiastically report that, too.


I'd never heard the term Ho until some ill-mannered clown called an opposing team of athletes that. Reported in the papers a wide ocean away.
We needed another term for prostitute/whore/tart/slut/scrubber like we needed another war.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 04:07 PM

I once posed WITH a couple of young ladies back in '71 and we were ALL there with the department store Santa Claus at some mall in Toronto. I think it was the big one up by Dufferin and 401. The young ladies were Mary Nemis and Gilda Daskalova. Mary was a slender blonde girl of central European lineage (Lithuanian-Canadian?), while Gilda was a dark-haired, sultry-looking girl who had emigrated from Bulgaria or Rumania or one of those countries around there. They were both quite attractive.

Well, Gilda was wearing a rather low-cut blouse. The poor Santa was quite distracted, but he did manage to get out a few breathless "Ho! Ho! Ho!'s" He had Mary sitting on one knee, Gilda on the other, and me standing just at the side, all grinning at the camera.

I've still got the picture. You can definitely see Santa's thinking hard about what he'd like to give Gilda for Christmas...

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 02:21 PM

I just sent Joe Offer my picture of myself as Santa with a couple of putative "hoes" perched on my knees. (See current non-BS thread on "Who's in charge of member photos?")

If and when it appears on the new MyOpera Mudcat page, I'll notify this thread...

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 01:03 PM

I once had an African-American boss who would slip niggardly into the conversation whenever she could. She was great, one of the funniest people I have ever known. When she told a story everyone in the room would be rolling on the floor.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 06:56 AM

And how long will it be before Frosty the Snowman is barred from public places because of his pipe?

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 16 Nov 07 - 05:33 AM

"African-Americanberries" surely...?


Dáithí

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 08:59 PM

All we need d is all carry blackberries to talk to one another that have built in Politically incorrect filters that will make our meaning inoffensive to the other person's blackberry.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 08:03 PM

What puzzled me about that "niggardly" thing was why on earth the man offered his resignation? Nothing surprising about some slightly cloth-eared colleague mishearing the word and jumping to a not-unreasonable, if false, conclusion. But to resign without having done anything wrong is strange.

Behind a lot of these stories, I suspect, lies a back story which is more interesting and complicated. "Reality" in the media is very akin sometimes to "reality" in the TV shows that, somewhat ludicrously, carry that label. Someone is writing a script in advance, and the actual events are liable to be manipulated so as to fit that script.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: RangerSteve
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 07:21 PM

Some people only notice what offends them. I hope there's a God, and a heaven. I have a vision of these people getting to the Pearly Gates, only to be turned away, after God informs them that for all the beauty in the world, the Alps, Norwegian Fjords, the South Pacific islands, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Amazon, songbirds and flowers and autumn leaves, all they noticed were offenses that existed only in their minds.

Those people use the excuse that God gave us eyes, they forget that he also gave us eyelids, and it's ok to use them once in a while.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:46 PM

Thanks BB! That's it exactly!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Don Firth
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:21 PM

Penn Gillette, of the comedy team Penn and Teller, used to write a humor column for one of the computer magazines. He noted that Microsoft was being taken to task by a particular group of people because in the list of "wingdings" (click on Insert > Symbol, then scroll down) in one version of Word, a symbol for their particular group was adjacent to a skull-and-crossbones. They claimed that this was a secret message to those in the know, saying "Kill all (insert name of ethnic group)!"

Penn Gillette's comment about this was, "There are people in this world who, while walking through the rubble following an explosion in a Scrabble tile factory, could find something to be offended at!"

Abysmally silly. But all too true!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Grab
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 06:04 PM

Never mind "niggardly", I had a boss once who complained about the word "novel", as used in the phrase "a novel system for ..." in a specification I wrote about a new way of doing things. Turns out he'd only ever heard it used in the context of sarky comments like "well *that's* a novel idea". Sigh. I enlightened him with a half-dozen links from dictionary sites, but I changed the spec because I was clearly writing at a level above most manageroids. (That's like a haemorroid, except it's a pain in the ass that orders you around.)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: pdq
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:39 PM

"Allegedly {???}

"Washington, DC's black Mayor, Anthony Williams, gladly accepted the resignation of his white staff member, David Howard, because Mr. Howard uttered the word 'niggardly' in a private staff meeting." {1999 ~ see as many internet sites as you please}

{Webster's Tenth Edition defines the word 'niggardly' to "grudgingly mean about spending or granting".  The Barnhard Dictionary of Etymology traces the origins of 'niggardly' to the 1300's, and to the words 'nig' and 'ignon', meaning "miser" in Middle English.  No where in any of these references is any mention of racial connotations associated with the word 'niggardly'.}

Shakespeare: "Aye, to a niggardly host, and more sparing guest"

Milton: "A penurious niggard of his wealth"

Gibbon: "It is the niggard praise of Zosimus himself"

Johnson: "dreaded the appellation of a niggardly fellow"

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:08 PM

That sounds like the "sue 'em" culture tom. I seem to remember several broken limbs when playing "tag" in my school days.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: topical tom
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:05 PM

This is absolute b***s***! But when tag is outlawed on some school playgrounds (next in parks?)how far can such idiocy go?

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 05:01 PM

Allegedly.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:42 PM

There was another case of a teacher reprimanded for using the expression "prig". Allegedly a girl pupil with a dirtymind thought the teacher had said something else....

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM

you probably DON'T want the sequels...

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:28 PM

kat,

They´re coming to take me away haha
by Napoleon the 14th

Remember when you ran away
And I got on my knees and begged you
Not to go because I´d go beserk?
WELL, You left me anyhow and
Then the days got worse and worse
And now you see I´ve gone completely
out of my mind
AND
(chorus 1)
They´re coming to take me away,
Haha, they´re coming to take me away,
Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha,
To the funny farm
Where Life is Beautiful all the time
And I´ll be happy to see
Those Nice Young Men
In their Clean White Coats
And they´re coming to take me AWAY,
HA HAAAA

You thought it was a joke,
and so you LAUGHED, YOU LAUGHED
When I had said that losing you
Would make me flip my lid,
RIGHT?
You know you laughed
I HEARD you laugh, you laughed
And laughed and laughed
And then you left,
And now you see I´m Utterly Mad
AND

(chorus 2)
They´re coming to take me away,
Haha, they´re coming to take me away,
Ho ho, hee hee, ha ha,
To tha Happy Home with Trees and Flowers
And Chirping Birds and basket weavers
Who sit and smile and
Twiddle their thumbs and toes
And they´re coming to Take me Away,
HAHAAAAAAAAA

I cooked your food,
I cleaned your house,
And this is how you pay me back
For all my kind unselfish loving deeds
RIGHT?
Well, you just wait,
They´ll get you yet,
And when they do, they´ll put you in
the ASPCA, you mangy MUTT,
AND
(chorus 1)
(chorus 2)
(chorus 1 trailing into mumbles in the distance)

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: eddie1
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 04:22 PM

This is an evening for coincidences (see my contribution to the Big File Thread.) Tomorrow morning early, I head off to The South England Showground for three days as my altar ego. I know now what not to say but not sure what to say instead.
How about, "Ho! Ho! Ho! without any sexual connotation intended!"
Or perhaps 5-year olds won't understand "intended!"

Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:33 PM

Tally Ho!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:21 PM

The Sydney Santa story was reported on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning by Sarah Montague, who was trying not to crack up, but failing.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:15 PM

Hey, if you respond to the call of Ho, don't complain about it!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:14 PM

That "Niggardly" incdent was a perfectly reasonable misunderstanding. The word "niggardly" crops up rather less frequently than the one it was evidently mistaken for. Allegedly.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:04 PM

Ban the alphabet, I say! Every offensive word imaginable is contained therein! Even this one!

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 03:03 PM

Unless he points his finger and leers, not offended.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 02:57 PM

7 year old: "Mommy, I can't eat this alphabet soup!"
Mother: "Why not?
7 year old: "Because the letters are spelling a naughty word!"

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 02:43 PM

If it seems stupid, remember there's avery strong chance that it actually ain't true.

There was a regionally infamous incident here a few years back in which a minor public official was reprimanded by his boss and ordered to issue an apology for using the word "niggardly" in a speech.

While I agree that much of what seems stupid is fictitous, I also believe the human capacity for stupidity is nearly infinite.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 02:03 PM

"You couldn't make it up" - unless you are workig for a crap tabloid paper, in which case that's what you are required to do.

If it seems stupid, remember there's avery strong chance that it actually ain't true.

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 02:02 PM

No that would be Ho, hi!

Remember that song from the early 70's, They're coming to take me away, Ha, ha, hee, hee, ho, ho, to the Funny Farm? (I think there was a ho, ho in there!)

Subject: RE: BS: Santas' 'Ho Ho Ho' offensive to women???
From: Amos
Date: 15 Nov 07 - 02:02 PM

I always thought it was a kind of off-brand Ritz cracker, myself. But the expression "Ritz cracker" could be offensive to some up-town jolly-walkers with habits. So I had better not submit this post.

A