More woke nonsense

[Blaketon]

See https://www.change.org/p/save-the-midge ... 123bff420a . I've signed it.

[Bill_qaz]

Signed

[myoldjalopy]

Yes, signed - and what a foolish proposed name 'The Roaring Raindrop'!

[geoberni]

Signed, for some reason I always seem to miss the actual 'leave a comment' part of that website....

I really don't like Green King anyway, ever since they brought out one of out local breweries, then engineered one of our village pubs to become uneconomic, just so they could make money from selling it as housing land.

[Mr Spigot]

What's 'woke' got to do with it??? Signing the petition would seem more 'woke' as it shows you care!

[Blaketon]

Yes, signed - and what a foolish proposed name 'The Roaring Raindrop'!

I thought that but I wonder is it a subtle swipe at the wet lettuce who complained about the name Midget? What next, someone, whose house has been flooded, gets upset at the notion of a roaring rain drop?

I hope there are no pubs called the Morris Minor; some chump will try to say it encourages under age drinking.

[Blaketon]

Signed, for some reason I always seem to miss the actual 'leave a comment' part of that website....

I really don't like Green King anyway, ever since they brought out one of out local breweries, then engineered one of our village pubs to become uneconomic, just so they could make money from selling it as housing land.

Perhaps this is the idea here; upset the locals, who boycott the pub?

I find all big organisations increasingly hard to deal with, given that most seem wedded to flow chart mentality and so called A.I., which when programmed by the village idiot, is really genuine stupidity. Many are an uncoordinated shambles, where if you find someone, who knows what they are doing, they have no idea of what anyone else is doing. Most of the time, it is clear that they don't want you to get in touch and since most such outfits are as flexible as glass, with the reactions of a brontosaurus, when things go wrong, they stay wrong.

Yes, you can get bad small firms BUT in most cases, I think a decent proprietor would have put the complaining numpty straight (Has she ever heard of an MG Midget?). There is also the fact that when a place is someone's sole means of making a living, they will be less likely to pull the plug, than some large outfit, who will pull the plug sooner, if the figures are below what the flow chart requires. I am reminded of a local case, where a supermarket chain have bought the Conservative Club and opened a small supermarket. The access is poor, the road being very narrow, with the back entrance to a family run ironmongers (That has expanded into furniture and gardening) opposite. Given that shoppers will be out when things are busy, rather than going for a drink in the evening, I think congestion will result. If the supermarket puts the local, family run minimarket out of business but later decides the figures are below par and closes, who benefits from that? We are said to be in troubled times but the family concern will be more apt to try and struggle through (They have been there a long time, so it is to be hoped have a bit in reserve).

[Bill_qaz]

Dr Erin Pritchard, who started the petition to change the pub’s original name, wrote that the name “The Midget” was a term “popularised during the Victorian freak show, but unfortunately continues to be used as a form of hate speech towards people with dwarfism”.
She later added: “It is good to see that Greene King is open to addressing concerns about disablist hate speech. The term midget is a form of disablist hate speech, which I and most other people with dwarfism, have experienced as a form of bullying, including it having it shouted at us by strangers.
More PC BS we will be asked to remove badges from all MG Midgets next

Greene King said it would rename the pub The Roaring Raindrop in tribute to the last ever land speed record-breaking car produced by MG

[Blaketon]

The car in question is normally referred to and is better known as EX 181.

[Blaketon]

More PC BS we will be asked to remove badges from all MG Midgets next

We could re badge them as Sprites or will that offend someone else?

[jagnut66]

I too have now signed this and was presented with a comments section to accompany my signature at the same time.
So used it to leave the PC brigade / originator of this nonsense what I think of them.......
Couldn't resist.....
Best wishes,
Mike.

[philthehill]

Re-branding as Sprites may upset the Healy owners.

The Slug and Lettuce re-brand seemed to be a foolish aberration at the time.

[Myrtles Man]

"(Has she ever heard of an MG Midget?)"


I've often found myself wondering how they could have come up with that name in the first place. Now, let me see...
(I have also signed the petition; something of an each-way bet, you might say. )

[firedrake1942]

Whilst this may be looked upon as a hobby horse and seen as rather risible given the car association, which itself is a reference to the diminutive car (s) (and therefore to something / someone small ) so named, has anyone actually thought how it feels for someone with dwarfism to be labelled a midget and yelled at in the street using this word as an insult?

Would you still use some of the insulting names we were used to hearing in the school playground, and later in the street? It's Just banter, just joshing - grow a pair, thin skinned! These ignorant bullying catcalls made some people's lives a misery. Thankfully society moved on and many insults are, rightly, no longer used.

Just for a moment would it be possible to show some empathy, whilst politely disagreeing with the decision, perhaps understanding why some people may be upset by it.

Just a thought.

[Blaketon]

Agreed but Cecil Kimber wasn't trying to insult anyone when he announced the MG Midget, no more than the people who named this pub. It's a word, that describes something small. What is so wrong with being short anyway? Nuvolari was only 5'2. Will they cancel the sale of "Shorts" in pubs, in case someone takes that out of context?

[Bill_qaz]

The word midget is not derogatory or offensive, it's the context in which it used such as an insult , but in this instance it the name of a car in a car themed pub in the town it was manufactured.FFS

[geoberni]

Whilst this may be looked upon as a hobby horse and seen as rather risible given the car association, which itself is a reference to the diminutive car (s) (and therefore to something / someone small ) so named, has anyone actually thought how it feels for someone with dwarfism to be labelled a midget and yelled at in the street using this word as an insult?

Would you still use some of the insulting names we were used to hearing in the school playground, and later in the street? It's Just banter, just joshing - grow a pair, thin skinned! These ignorant bullying catcalls made some people's lives a misery. Thankfully society moved on and many insults are, rightly, no longer used.

Just for a moment would it be possible to show some empathy, whilst politely disagreeing with the decision, perhaps understanding why some people may be upset by it.

Just a thought.

You can't stop antisocial, bigoted, behaviour by erasing history.
This is as much the self-righteous attitude of an academic living in a bubble of academia as anything else.
Dr Pritchard goes out of her way to find anywhere the word Midget appears and petitions for it's removal.
She is simply seeking to remove the word wherever is appears; that doesn't stop it being used in a derogatory manner by those so inclined.
To me, that illustrates her existence in an academic bubble, detached from the reality of the sort of people who use it in a derogatory manner.
In 2022, she campaigned to have the word removed from the classic Midget Gems sweets. Presumably she is still doing so since there are still companies out there using the name, while some now call them 'Mini-Gems'....

I would fully support her if she were simply seeking to stop the word being used to describe people with Dwarfism; but she instead seeks it out whatever the context, to erase it from History.
Changing the name is not going to stop locals from calling it The Midget, and it's not going to stop a certain category of people using the term in a derogatory way. Only education will do that, not censorship.
Pritchard is detached from real life and should be educating the ignorant instead of presumably scouring the English speaking world for the word Midget.

[Blaketon]

This is as much the self-righteous attitude of an academic living in a bubble of academia as anything else.

I said something, along these lines, when I signed the petition. I also quoted the old saying, that "It's not the mouth it comes out of, so much as the mind it goes into". We've all heard of midget submarines; I bet nobody ever connected that with an insult towards very short people.

My mother wondered when "Midget" is going to be removed from the dictionary and even if it was (Would anyone notice?), there are other words, that really are insulting, which could be used. My mother suggested this person hasn't got enough to do and that there really are more pressing matters to concern us.

[svenedin]

Another example of a word from motoring that we use is from the ignition timing: advance/retard. The word retard is highly offensive if used as an insult to those with learning disabilities but it is all about the context of how and when the word is used. The word itself is not inherently offensive.

Stephen

[Blaketon]

I just saw this - https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/3184210 ... -guinness/ and wonder whether the shorter lady would be offended by the pub named an MG Midget?