If you have ever visited the North East of England and interacted with any inhabitants of that area, the chances are, never mind your gender or age, that you will have been called ‘pet’.
If you have ever visited London or the south east, and interacted with any inhabitants then the chances are, never mind your gender or age, that you have been called ‘love or darlin’.
If you have ever visited Edinburgh or Glasgow it’s ‘hen’ or ‘hennie’. Liverpool ‘chook’. There are too many to list..
These terms of endearment are a feature of the English language in all its rich tapestry of regional diversity and can be found from the plains of the USA to the slums of Glasgow. They are especially prevalent in the British Isles where regional accents and dialects are extremely distinct. I’m typing this 20 miles south of the border in Northumberland, here it is ‘pet’ 21 miles north, ‘hen’.
This phenomenon has been studied. In fact, dozens of academic studies exist on this unique cultural diversity. These studies also tell us how these words are used. Firstly, they are not gender-specific and tend not to be age-specific. Secondly, they are most prevalent in service interactions between strangers; in fact, they are seen as a polite and welcoming way of interacting in such circumstances. They are also, as mentioned, a feature of regional dialects and contribute to the keen sense of identity in communities. They are most commonly used by what is referred to as ‘non-academics’ – i.e., those who did not attend a university. They are universal in the working class of an urban area, but in rural areas, their use crosses classes. They are as unique to a region as a stottie cake is to a Geordie or a deep-fried haggis is to an Edinburger, forming part of our identity, diversity as a nation, society and heritage.
So why is my alma mata, the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne instructing its staff to avoid using ‘Pet’?
The 13 member-strong Diversity and Inclusion team (yes, 13 of them) at the University has issued a 7-page guide with 44 words and phrases listed that should be avoided as problematic. “Avoid patronising or gendered terms, such as girls, pet or ladies,” says the advice. Now, let’s put aside why an academic institution is so keen to police the speech of its staff and students by dictating what is ‘unacceptable’. We have already established, as they would have if they had actually researched the use of ‘pet’, that it is never used in a patronising manner and is not gender-specific. Had they checked the extensive amount of research, freely available with a five-minute Google search, they would not have jumped to this erroneous conclusion and would not now be in the headlines.
There are those who have been quick to agree. In the Telegraph, Eleanor Mills thunders that the University is “right to ban ‘pet’ – it’s so patronising”. She says she is “all for endearments” but claims that it is inappropriate when used to address young women. Oddly enough, she seems to like being called “my loverrrr” by red-faced West Country yokel types, but apparently Geordies don’t qualify for this tolerance.
Now, I don’t know where Ms. Mills is from, and I don’t know if she has ever spent any time in Newcastle or rural Northumberland. She sounds very ‘educated class’; like me, she speaks with an ‘RP’ accent, and RP is one of the very few dialects in British English that doesn’t use endearments in this way. I can’t think that she has spent any time up here, because if she had, she would know that ‘pet’ is never used exclusively to address young women; it is never used to patronise or uniquely in a sexist manner. As already described, ‘pet’, along with its equivalents, is in fact part of the rich micro-diachronic variation in British English. We can evidence that from the multiple studies carried out, and indeed, anyone who actually gets off their backside and travels to the regions to speak to the ‘plebs sordida’ can confirm this.
There’s a nasty whiff of classism here, that the working classes need to be morally corrected: what they eat, their politics, their relationships, their pastimes, their dress sense and their language must all be policed by those-who-know-what-is-in-their-best-interests. It doesn’t surprise me that a university EDI team has come out with this, and it doesn’t surprise me that Eleanor Mills has decided to chime in. The great unwashed must be tamed.
There is something else going on here, though. Such glossaries of ‘verboten’ words are becoming increasingly common, chosen and promulgated by these ‘experts’ in EDI and HR departments across our green and pleasant land. The idea that language must be policed comes from the assumption that all human interactions are, at their base, a conflict about power – gaining power over your interlocutor. If you speak to any modern academic versed in Critical Theory, this is front and centre of their worldview. The idea that an employee and an employer could have a relationship and a friendship based on mutual benefit is dismissed. The only dynamic in such a relationship is exploitation: the exploitation of the worker by the employer. It takes a distinctly negative view of humanity, assuming that humans are incapable of good intent towards one another and would only ever display good intent or generosity for personal gain – to manipulate. You won’t be surprised to hear that the most recent influential figure to promulgate this cynical and warped view of humanity was Vladimir Lenin, who based it on some of Nietzsche’s ideas. To Lenin, all relationships were about power, and the prerogative was to interact with others with your metaphorical foot on their necks.
Given how Marxist-Leninism has become the basis of so much of our academic effort over the last 50 years, it is hardly surprising that this dystopian view of humanity has eventually escaped from the Social Studies faculties and is now pervasive in society as a whole, where it is coming up sharply against 2,000 years of Christian thinking. This thinking holds that people are not inherently driven by power and exploitation, and that concepts such as generosity and charity are virtuous and should never be pursued for personal gain.
When HR departments take it upon themselves to inflict this view of the world on their employees, it usually backfires. In fact, we have the figures: EDI training has backfired spectacularly, with 63% of those trained experiencing major issues with it. Who would have thought that telling your employees they were incorrigible, unreconstructed Sidney Smutts from Viz – racists, bigots and homophobes to boot – who all need re-educating, wouldn’t go down well with those employees?
‘Microaggressions’, the idea that language needs to be micromanaged, is a dead end for society, and it is extraordinary that the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD, the self-appointed boyars of the Human Resources industry in the U.K.) has adopted the theory so enthusiastically. The notion that normal, healthy human interactions and language must be policed by employers is a major problem. Firstly, it infantilises the employee; it removes their personal responsibility for their own behaviour and hands it over to the HR team. Issuing lists of ‘forbidden’ words or ‘microaggressions’ that might conceivably upset someone can never be comprehensive. “But that word wasn’t on the list, so it must be OK!” Furthermore, language relies on context; ‘lists’ remove context, and we have seen ‘microaggression’ policies devolve into a charter for empowering bullies in the workplace. In June 2024, the London City-based law firm Hogan Lovells announced that it was introducing a reporting service where employees could anonymously report colleagues for ‘microaggressions’, presumably so the HR team could then intervene and ‘take corrective action’. This was reported in the CIPD’s magazine, People Management, where they collected quotes from a variety of HR professionals, all of whom enthusiastically endorsed the idea. Not one critic was asked for their opinion (incidentally, those quotes supporting the measure, as you might expect, all seem to benefit directly from such a measure being introduced, e.g. ‘Inclusivity Consultants’).
There’s a historical point here which may come as a surprise to these HR people, so convinced that they are right to be doing this for the employee’s own good. Here’s the thing: the Popes and Kings who initiated the Inquisition didn’t set out to burn and terrorise their own populations. The mediaeval mindset was that the afterlife was very real and eternal, and that if you sinned or committed heresy in this life, your torment would be eternal. So a bit of physical pain on this side of death to persuade a heretic to reform his or her ways was entirely morally justified, because they were utterly convinced that if they did not, their souls would be in torment for eternity. It was for the heretic’s own good.
Another: East Germany was one of the most notorious surveillance states in history (although there are a few modern states which may have taken that crown). The Secret Police, the STASI, developed an informant network that encompassed one in every five of the entire population. The suppression of dissent and unapproved opinions and politics was extremely intrusive and frequently resulted in imprisonment. Unlike the collapse of many totalitarian regimes, we were able to interview and study those who thought this was a good idea. Universally, they were committed Marxist-Leninists who genuinely believed Communism was the only civilised way for people to live. Those who didn’t understand this needed to be re-educated for their own good. The STASI, the prisons and the informer networks all existed for the population’s own good. This is one of the reasons why periodically delinquent dissidents – those who had not responded to ‘re-education’ or the short, sharp shock of imprisonment; those who had resisted the zersetzung – literally the decomposition of your life, the 24/7 police and state harassment and intimidation – were deported to the West. They were incorrigible and wouldn’t respond to ‘re-education’. The ‘civilised’ approach was to throw them over the wall to their fellow capitalists. They gave up on them, but only after trying very hard to ‘fix’ them.
Does any of this sound familiar? In Britain, and indeed across the West, we have developed a managerial class that has taken upon itself the mantle of moral superiority and equates its politics with morality. It has convinced itself that its role is to make the world a better place by ‘addressing injustices’, whether they are current or historical. Any dissent is seen as coming from those who are obviously unenlightened and morally degenerate. These people need to be ‘re-educated’.
Now, for some reason that I have been unable to get an answer for, our institutions and companies seem to think that this needs to be done in the workplace as well as in schools, academies and universities. Apparently, getting a load of city lawyers to avoid ‘microaggressions’ is a worthwhile activity and ‘addresses injustices’. Really? Does it? Or does it actually demoralise those who are being policed? Does it create an atmosphere of treading on eggshells, where everyone is terrified to speak to others and trust no longer exists?
Put the lawyers aside for a moment. This week, Harry Miller from Fair Cop shared an anecdote in an interview. He mentioned that he had heard of two police officers who had been having a conversation in their squad car. The conversation was about DEI training. One of the officers, a Christian, said that he thought this was a waste of time and didn’t believe men could become women and vice versa, or words to that effect. When they returned to the station, his colleague reported him to HR. Why? Because HR apparently periodically checks the voice recordings of events in police cars to ensure that behaviour is appropriate. So, HR dragged the Christian officer in for questioning. He told them where to stick it and that he would sue if they disciplined him, because his opinion, both as a gender realist and a Christian, is protected under the Equality Act. Consequently, HR stepped down. However, the issue here, as Harry rightly pointed out, is that trust between employees is crucial everywhere; in the police, it can literally be a matter of life or death. Yet this policy undermines that trust by creating an atmosphere of suspicion, mistrust, and a culture of denunciation.
Need I point out that during The Great Purge in the USSR in the 1930s, people would denounce their own friends, family and colleagues because they thought that if they didn’t, they would be punished for not doing so, and they were right.
Is this really the society we want to live in?
Well, Newcastle University seems to think so, and they are keen to reassure people that these are ‘recommendations’ and ‘not compulsory’. Well, I am sorry if I call that out as utter nonsense, because we know damn fine that they don’t need to be compulsory to create an atmosphere of treading on eggshells around people, an idea that those who use such words are moral delinquents. Repeatedly, we see these ‘recommendations’ becoming mandates by default.
It is time for HR departments to take a long, hard look at themselves and wind back this nonsense before it causes irreparable damage to our workplaces and our society. It is not their job to micromanage human relationships.
C.J. Strachan is the pseudonym of a concerned Scot who worked for 30 years as a Human Resources executive in some of the U.K.’s leading organisations. This article was first published on his Substack which you can subscribe to here. He is a founder of Fair Job, an accreditation and support service for small businesses to help them navigate the minefields of DEI and HR.
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Clearly the word “whitewash” has now been replaced by “flawed research”.
Come off it. The BMJ know damn well these bits of research are not flawed. They are a concerted campaign of WHITEWASHING.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-new-front-in-the-attack-on-free-speech/
“Prentis’s intervention is a shocking overreach. It is not her job to tell reporters to stop reporting on issues where there is merely the “potential” for criminal proceedings.”
Victoria Prentis (who ate all the pies) Attorney General failing to understand the basics of English law. There is NO contempt of court if charges have not been made.
They really are rattled aren’t they? All this interest for a celebrity.
Exactly.
If Russell Brand is taken to court I believe a fair trial is now impossible. Perhaps, as I commented yesterday the aim will be to put him through the grinder for months all the way up to the point where a decision on taking him through the courts has to be made and then weaselling out of it. By then he will possibly have lost a lot of money and perhaps much physical and mental health.
Yes, that may well be the vague plan. I don’t know the man well but I think they may well have picked the wrong person to mess with – rather like Jordan Peterson he may be too big, too rich and too strong mentally to cancel. I hope so.
The process is the punishment
It may be unkind of me, but the incidence of ‘long covid’ seems to increase in line with the generosity of employer’s sick pay packages.(Very popular in the NHS apparently).
I spent all of summer 2020 with varying degrees of cold/ flu symptoms, mostly, a permanently runny nose and diarrhea. I’d also frequently run out of breath which would usually manifest itself as sharp flashes of pain in the teeth. This gradually subsided over autumn/ winter and never got bad that I had needed to stop working because of it. Nevertheless, it was (to me) a new phenomenon and certainly a hell of a nuisance.
Long before the Rona hysteria there was a medical condition colloquially known as “Sticky Back Syndrome”. It was most noticeable among the ranks of local and central government ’employees’.
Dr Pierre Kory has done a 2-parter substack on this, based on treating 900+ patients – an interesting read. First part linked.
https://pierrekorymedicalmusings.com/p/the-suffering-of-covid-19-vaccine?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Scott and I have now seen well over 900 patients who are chronically ill after receiving the Covid-19 mRNA injections or suffering with Long Haul Covid (a.k.a. PASC – post-acute sequelae of Covid). I would estimate the breakout of our patient population at this point is approximately 70% Post-vaccine syndrome (“Long Vax”) vs. 30% Long Covid syndrome…
Here is another worrying report:
https://www.cato.org/blog/nearly-third-gen-z-favors-home-government-surveillance-cameras-1
Now who wouldn’t want the government to put cameras in your home? Very “safe and effective.”
There is definitely a malaise or a syndrome and the causes are various but you won’t hear mention of any of the major rises in toxicity that we have been exposed to since 1989. RFK Jr and a few other people have talked about them as a concerted attack. The dual use bioweapon is just one of them. Probably the most evil act in the sense of introducing a pathogen into our existence forever. Once you start tampering with the fabric like that you pretty soon invite catastrophe upon yourself.
There is no herbal or supplement remedy to our times. It sounds limp but the only remedy is sitting down and doing nothing and concentraing or meditating on the moment. I don’t usually say this sort of thing but in our consciousness there is a moment where things have to happen The powers that be are trying to capitalise on the flux situation. We have lost the vitality of our sons it has been pointed in the direction of gloom. It is up to us to lift that. We could easily lift the young men up.
If Covid doesn’t exist then long Covid can’t exist.
Isn’t it possible that the symptoms of ‘Long Covid’ could be caused by the Covid jabs? Why isn’t every single person supposedly suffering from Long Covid asked if they’ve had the jabs (and how many). My husband and I, having had none of the jabs, don’t appear to have had Covid at all and certainly not Long Covid! The possibility of a relationship between Long Covid and the mRNA Covid jabs should definitely be investigated.
As has been asked many times before now, why did it ever need its own name? It’s post-viral illness, which has always existed. Although most people seemed to have no idea until the dreadful covid came along.