Wow:

‘Brainstorming’, the buzzword used by executives to generate ideas among their staff, has been deemed politically incorrect by civil servants because it is thought to be offensive to people with brain disorders.

Instead staff at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) in Belfast will use the term ‘thought-showers’ when they get together to think creatively. A spokeswoman said: ‘The DETI does not use the term brainstorming on its training courses on the grounds that it may be deemed pejorative.’

Sources inside the department said there was concern that the term would cause offence to people with epilepsy as well those with brain tumours or brain injuries.

I can’t even conceive of how “brainstorm” would offend an epileptic. Is that some kind of slang for seizure?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 12:26 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.