LOL, I work with a young guy who is a late Gen Y early Millenial, and one day we discussed going to “The Yellow House” for Chinese food. It is in a historic house that has always been yellow, and everyone has always referred to it as “The Yellow House”.
Heh, in all seriousness, he said “That’s racist.” and I admit I didn’t know if he was serious or not, but who can tell?
Also, another time further in the past, I was working on something and, holding my hand out said “Can you hand me a pair of dykes?”
After a second or two where no diagonal cutters were forthcoming, I looked at him expectantly, and his face was frozen. Uncomprehendingly, I said “What’s wrong? What is it?”
And he said “You said a word!”
I still completely did not get what the issue was...:)
I know I should be irritated, but...retelling it makes me grin.
Kind of like the time I was teaching a bunch of students about radio buttons in a program back at the end of the 20th Century in a computer class, saying “like those radio buttons in a car where if you push one in, the previous selection pops out so you can only choose one at a time...” and as I looked at the slack-jawed face of one of the girls sitting at the front of the class, it occurred to me “She has no idea what “radio buttons” are in a car!”
She had never seen them before!
They do not know what a ‘dial’ is either, on a telephone or a TV or radio, or as a verb.............................
It’s not racist if they call themselves that. The blacks established that clearly, I thought.
I’ll bet there are millions of people under age 30 who silently wonder why we use the expression;
“Dial a number”. The only ‘Dial’ they know of is Dial Soap.
I had one who called my boss complaining that I continually did not send him the updated figures.
I knew I did. I could show the sent message.
I started BCC my manager on the form to make sure he could see I was indeed sending them.
Finally figured out the problem. The form I used had a five character title limit.
So Milk was labeled "Homo" "2%" "1%" "Skim" and the Homo was getting caught in his POSS (Perpetually Offended Special Snowflake) filter.
The customer wanted me to change the industry form rather then allow Homo to stand.
My boss kicked it upstairs who then kicked it upstairs and they kicked it upstairs and... you get the idea. Finally they changed the entire form. It was now 4% Milk.
Well... it was 4% Mi. Five character title limit.