June 1st, 2007 by ThunderDragon
When is a male bird not a cock? When it’s on the RSPB website.“The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has banned the use of the word “cock” when applied to the male of the species, in case it causes offence.
In a move condemned for “taking political correctness too far”, a correspondent on an RSPB online forum was surprised to find that his use of the word “cock”, when referring to a male blackbird, was replaced with four asterisks.
He challenged the forum moderator over the sensitivity to the word, only to find that once again the asterisks appeared. He wrote: “When is it not in order to refer to a male bird as a **** and a female as a hen? I’ve heard of PC but that is taking things too far.”" (The Telegraph)
Absolutely ridiculous. Yes, the term “cock” can be used in an offensive manner. But so can so many words if they are wanted to. It’s like banning the word “bitch” on a dog breeders website. The RSPB can have no particular problem with the word “cock” as it is the word for a male bird. If they have problems with it being used abused on their forum, then moderate those posts appropriately. It’s really not hard. But banning the word itself is just absurd.
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I think people feel embarrassed saying the workd “cock” in this context - oh, I just said it! I know an MEP whose wife is Fanny.
I agree we shouldn’t ban words because their meaning has changed over the years. Out of interest, which usage of the word “cock” came first?
Sorry to disappoint but the problem was caused by an overenthusiatic spam filter rather than a PC jobsworth
It’s very very easy to select words to allowed through a filter like that. Literally, it takes seconds to remove “cock” from banned words.