Sunday, April 25, 2004

Huh?

There's got to be more to this story. When I was last in England, everyone used terms of address that to Americans might seem a little forward, but to the English seemed perfectly natural. People called you "love" who didn't know you from Adam, it was just a way of saying, "Hey you!" It startled me at first, but I adapted.
I wonder if that's what's going on here, that they don't want to upset different cultural sensibilities instead of the whole sexual harassment nonsense. Note that there's no outright ban on calling somebody "love" or "darling".

"The wording of the document says the use of affectionate names such as 'darling' may also constitute sexual harassment," said a spokesman. "It's not that the word is banned. It's the context."

Yep. My guess is that the code is nowhere near as severe as this story implies. Of course, there is no way to know, considering that the text of the code is printed nowhere in this story. If more of these "severe" sexual harassment codes came out it might do serious damage to the belief that hysterical feminists are trying to ban flirting altogether so that men, who they hate, never get laid again.

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