Gumtree comes over all queer in blocking 'offensive language'

common sense....

prevails, most surely?

i don't see anything wrong with not allowing a job advert to highlight the personal leanings of the employer- i would suggest that if the employer put that they were 'straight and able-bodied' the ad would have been rejected.

in providing 'details' of the person placing the ad, they are indirectly discriminating against certain groups of people in that people who do not belong to particular groups won't be inclined to apply for the position.

In that case...

My ad for a match placed between Scunthorpe and Arsenal would be rejected...

FFS!

It's just a word, same a lots of other words!

Where the problem starts is the context that the word is used in. Queer and gay are just words, what has changed is the context they are used in now. They more often than not are used in a context, by homosexuals to describe themselves. Gay is a female name as well meaning happy. Queer just means out of place. I can say my broken old Mini Metro looks queer next to a long line of Rolls Royce's!

Yes there are some words that have only one, derogatory meaning. The N-word, springs immediately to mind. That is one word that was invented to be abusive, and did need to be eradicated.

Political Correctness is great when used sensibly, it has seen many great changes that have helped everyone to be a hell of a lot more tolerant of those different from others. What has happened is that these PC morons have decided that everything, no matter what, is a sensitive issue and needs to removed before someone is offended!

How Queer[1]

It is that the standards of English are deteriorating due to people being very sensitive about words. I am no longer gay[2] with all the red tape in this country people should just get over it.

Also with knowing homosexual[3] people they quite often call each other queers.

[1] Actually means strange/odd

[2] Actually means happy/carefree

[3] Actually means likes a bit of bum fun

That's the least of their problems

Gumtree is a joke, it's full of scams and spam.

There isn't a genuine entry in the personals, I emailed gumtree suggesting they implement a capture to stop the automated crap and got a very snotty email back about a week later saying that there wasn't a problem. Any advert you email will get you a very fast response inviting you to view their full profile on (insert various pay-for site here), followed by spam. Luckily I was only doing it to prove a point and had created a sacrificial hotmail account.

As for products for sale, wait for a new item to be announced, then check on gumtree the next day, there are people selling them way below the RRP, even though the product isn't actually available for another 2 months! No idea what those are, but many other items that are actually available are advertised at ridiculously low prices. I saw a Nikon D300 up for £500 earlier this year, which is about half it's value.

Again, no idea what the trick was there, but I'd almost bet you'd get mugged, or conned off with an empty box if you went to pick it up.

'scuse me?

S28 of the bill:

A person (a “service-provider”) concerned with the provision of a service to the

public or a section of the public (for payment or not) must not discriminate

against a person requiring the service by not providing the person with the

service.

Which is 'interesting' for all of those who fix computers and are legally obliged to discriminate against holders of certain types of writing or photographs they may come across. Oh, and if service providers can't discriminate then all the noise about broadband disconnection goes out of the windows, as does the right of the barman to not serve someone who has had a few too many but requires serving ...... and where does it leave the policeperson who has to discriminate against the guy with the AK47 and the guy with a banana when deciding who to arrest after a shooting?

Could the MPs who support this bill please get back to ripping people off and stop trying to look clever? At least the first pastime helps third-home-owners in Southampton, ducks, the porn industry, etc; the second, from this bill, helps no-one whatsoever. If it does help someone, it doesnt help everyone, so some people are being discriminated against by the service-providing MPs who vote in favour .....

Bootnote is Highly offensive

It sickens me every time I read your otherwise excellent articles and I find your 'bootnote' at the bottom of the page.

Do you not realise how offensive this term is for technical authors, writers, secretaries and other members of the community who on a daily basis contribute to articles or publications by creating marginal notes, annotations, comments & digressions in order to add richness and further depth to the main article?

As a Reader I find this term highly offensive and cannot believe you would write a piece about the offensiveness of language and not even consider your actions when using the term 'Bootnote' which is derogatory and undermines the value of yourself and fellow marginal note practitioners.

This type of flippant use of language contributes to hate and a secular society. And possibly global warming and fundamental extremism within the writing classes.

Care to explain why?

The tone of the article is pretty hypocritical considering you were willing to write "queer" but then referred to "the N-Word"?

This story written by Chris Moyle or something?

> "the appalling neologism "ghey", to mean "lame" without homosexual connotation"

How can anyone pretend it doesn't mean "lame, like being gay is lame"?

Here we go again

It's not what you say, it's how you say it that causes offense. I don't know a single gay person (yes I'm gay and I know a lot of them) that finds 'Queer' offensive. Many (in the uk at least) seem to be fine with fag too, although the extended faggot seems to still be generally deemed unacceptable all the time.

There's a difference between "Hey Emma, come meet my queer friends." and a drunk shouting "Die you dirty fag" across the street at 1am. When will people learn this?

Nanny State

Yes - Gumtree peeved me a few times before. Once I tried to sell a Nintendo DSi AND a DSOne homebrew card. I'm an avid Linux/hardware hacker (e.g. my latest project is turning an IM-ME into a media center remote control).

They rejected my ad on the basis that buyers with questionable intent can use the DSOne for other purposes. Why, then, am I allowed to sell a frying pan on Gumtree, even though someone with "questionable intent" might use it to bash someone else's head in?

We live in a Nanny State, so I'll just turn a blind eye and bend over.

@AC 00:35 - backwards?

I think you mean "...I'll just bend over and turn a blind eye."

"LGBT" too hard to say

I've always found the abbreviation "LGBT" quite awkward and difficult to say smoothly. I've come up with a slight modification that improves matters, at least in my own opinion. I now use "GBLT" instead and it becomes an easily pronounced acronym. That "giblets" is already a perfectly acceptable word meaning "edible offal of fowl" of course has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my neologism.

Please feel free to use GBLT if you like. I hereby release it into the pubic domain.

If the words/phrases

Are that *bad* nobody should get a free pass for using them...So this taking back shit should have em with the same fucking resttictions and penletys as anybody else.

If its that bad...personaly I think its the situational meaning not the words/phrases themselves.

I am not a Title, I am a free comment!

>Self-identification is unlikely to invoke the full force of the law<

So would that be like, just half the force of the law, a quarter?

Gay black guy here who fixes computers for a living, therefore I'm a PC repair queer nigger (it's not on my business cards though) and damn proud of it - privacy pirate to boot! Laws were introduced to govern behaviour, language was created to easier communicate with each other - the two should never meet...

>it is difficult to escape the conclusion that increasingly, we are living in a world in which language is being policed irrespective of meaning and context<

You mean like George Orwells '1984'? That is doubleplusungood and like, so gay (pejorative - such a cool word).

FAKE EDIT: Well, actually I'm half caste, but we haven't got enough degoratory names to go around - half breed I guess, but the world will be a saner place when we finally take over (unless, like the new Time Machine film, white Jeremy Iron Morlocks eat our tasty tanned flesh).

EVEN FAKER EDIT: Read William S. Burroughs before they make it illegal. Quote: “How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.” which, I guess, also make me queer - in the head.

Normal words.

Don't you love when normal words are used to describe a minority, it becomes a popular meaning, someone takes offence, and then we ban plain ordinary words based on it.

Can I not choose who i do business with anymore?

I run a small business and provide a service to the public (I mostly design house extensions). I am a 'one man band' and as such there are times when I am simply too busy to take on more work.

BUT section 29 says

Provision of services, etc.

(1) A person (a “service-provider”) concerned with the provision of a service to the public or a section of the public (for payment or not) must not discriminate against a person requiring the service by not providing the person with the service.

Am I now obliged to take on all work regardless of my ability to carry this out? But what about by other clients, surely if im so busy with new work and cannot finish the old work, i will be discriminating under section 29 (5) A service-provider (A) must not, in providing the service, victimise a person (B)

(a) as to the terms on which A provides the service to B;

(b) by terminating the provision of the service to B;

(c) by subjecting B to any other detriment.

By not being able to complete the work for a client in a timely fashion due to the new work, then I fall foul of section (c) as they will suffer detriment.

What happens if the person who rings you up for a quote is a lunatic and/or moron. Im sure there are others like me who have developed a 6th sense in detecting the loonies and then you put them off with an excuse (im too busy/ludicrous quote/im going on holiday). Or after a previous experience you may want nothing more to do with previous clients who somehow passed through the idiot filter

So, am I not now able to run my business as I see fit? Must i deal with anyone, and if i refuse to work for a client will i now be subject to legal action? Sounds like i am no longer in control of my business and will require a government apppointed overlord to ensure i am working for the greater good.... sounds like another quango time!

Oh, and to tie this post back into the subject matter I shall describe the above situation thus: How queer.

As an educated white male

I find the uneducated masses in this country offensive and would like them all removed immediately.

Double-plus good Citizen, divide and conquer.

My word, you do look queer

So Stanley Holloway will have to be banned by the BBC then?

Lay off the word 'fag'. Its slang for a ciggy

And if I cant puff on a fag in my break, I'll get very cross.

Queer theory?

More sinecures for activists.

I prefer practical applications.

This is rich

Coming from a company whose name makes fun of the elderly's sexual practices.

Talk about offensive.

Vote for the Camel Balls here

AC, Monday 7th December 2009 10:21,

"If someone said "come meet my queer friends" I'd of thought they were talking about weird friends, much as whenever says anything about faggots I think they're talking about bundles of wood.

It takes a moment for it to process that they mean homosexual/gay/lesbian" -

This is a horrible case of sabotage against the language, and it's deployed in many countries. For example, in Russia, as appears, "a homosexual" translates in slang as "a blue one". Some people complain that since the slang meaning appeared (leaked from the special use some 20 yrs ago) in the lexicon, they answer "the sky is OK" if anyone asks smb to look out of the window and see what's the sky.

Also, yet less Russians give their male children a name "Sergei" (someone here would possibly fall down the floor laughing, drop me a line if so) as it sounds in English as "Sir Gay", for they make no difference between the soundings of "a" and "e". As reported, each time when the name is called, people immediately start imagining Elton John.

So why won't we try to stop the terror on innocent names and words, I mean, the English-speaking community could probably definitely change using the word "gay" for, let's say, "bill".

"Hey, waiter! Bring me the... err... ok, just open the gates".

Meanwhile back in the real world

where large numbers of people are just trying to scrape a few things together to stay alive the last thing they are worrying about is bl***dy words. Only the first , self centred world do moronic conversations like this happen. You are offended get over it just be damned grateful you were born here and not in some parts of the world.

AC cause you'll all want a pop at me. I bet this gets canned.

@AC 00:13

When I was in the UK, I recall a lot of people liked fags, and couldn't wait to suck on one. Personally, I think they are disgusting, are dangerous to your health and leave stains. They should definitely be banned.

Umm... this is the anti-smoking thread, right?

Mine's the one with the English <-> American dictionary in the pocket.