Never, ever, ever, whatever you do, get together with coworkers and “brainstorm” an idea.<\/p>\n
You might offend epileptics.<\/a><\/p>\n Trainee teachers are being told to avoid the word for fear of offending pupils with epilepsy. Instead they are being advised to use “word storm” or “thought shower”.<\/p>\n Should I ever find myself suffering (if I can use that word) from a condition like epilepsy, I expect I’ll have bigger things to worry about than whether people are mistaking “brainstorm” (getting together and throwing around a lot of ideas) with “brainstorm” (a misfiring of neurons characteristic of an epileptic Of course, this may be a “word tempest” in a teapot:<\/p>\n However, charities working with epilepsy say “brainstorming” is not offensive. “We had several inquiries from teachers about it so we did a survey of our residential home,” said Gemma Baxter from the National Society for Epilepsy. Now that <\/i>I like.<\/p>\n (via Volokh<\/a>, who has some other info on “Native American” and “handicapped<\/a>“)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Never, ever, ever, whatever you do, get together with coworkers and “brainstorm” an idea. You might offend epileptics. Trainee teachers are being told to avoid the word for fear of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13714,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/13\/movie_review_speed_racer.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":0},"title":"Movie Review – Speed Racer","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 13-Oct-08 9:07pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to watch the original Speed Racer anime endlessly, before that word ever entered English. I probably watched every episode a dozen times. \u00a0 Speed Racer\u00a0(2008)\u00a0 Overall Story Production...","rel":"","context":"In "Animation \/ Cartoons"","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/speed-racer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1677,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/27\/i_fought_the_la.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":1},"title":"I fought the law …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 27-Nov-01 5:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dumb Laws A fun site (aside from the epilepsy-inducing banner ads and pop-ups) listing various \"dumb\" laws. Colorado's aren't funny-dumb, just annoying-dumb: Car dealers may not show cars on a...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1082,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/17\/this_is_strange.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":2},"title":"This is (stranger than) True","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-01 10:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Top5 List rocks. Today's list is based on news stories that Hollywood action writers are being solicited to brainstorm ideas of potential terrorist attack strategies, and how they could...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133096,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/19\/your-seizure-is-in-the-mail.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":3},"title":"Your seizure is in the mail","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Mar-17 3:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Pardon my French, but what sort of sick fuck deliberately attempts to trigger a seizure in someone they know is epileptic?I hope the now-arrested apparent perpetrator -- and his copy-cats -- get to spend some quality contemplation time in prison considering the error of their ways. A Tweet to Kurt\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131342,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/22\/searching-for-seizures.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":4},"title":"Searching for Seizures","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 22-Aug-16 10:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I would never suggest that someone should be condemned to Hell, but the epileptic author of this piece certainly has some reasons to be mightily torqued off at Sean Hannity.Separate from that, watching the video of his broadcast and commentary is like a trip through the Looking Glass. No, Sean,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2272,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/17\/logomania.html","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":5},"title":"Logomania","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Jul-02 2:46pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, which logo is scarier? I mean, on the one hand, you have the Illuminati Dominating the Globe, on the other hand you have a Moving Peeping Eyeball and an...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"US DARPA Information Awareness Office","src":"\/blog\/images\/darpa-iao.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}attack<\/s> fit<\/s> episode.<\/p>\n
\n“We also contacted people with epilepsy in the community and the overwhelming response was that ‘brainstorming’ implies no offence to people with epilepsy, and that any implication that the word is offensive to people with the condition is taking political correctness too far.”
\nPeople found it more offensive that the question was being asked of them, she said.<\/p>\n