WHAT??? I have never heard "brownie points" interpreted that way. I'm
sure the majority of people who use the term know only the girl scout
explanation. It sounds to me like your teacher was the one with the
dirty mind!
I think we do need to speak up when we hear people use offensive terms.
Then it is up to them on whether or not to continue using them.
Just my opinion...
Elizabeth Danford
Elementary Librarian
edanford@cisd.org
(903) 874-6971
fax (903) 641-4114
Sam Houston Development Center
1213 W. 4th Ave.
Corsicana, TX 75110
>>> Dorothy Tissair <dtissair@SNET.NET> 10/11/04 02:28PM >>>
I have had several young people over the last fifteen years or so who
had no understanding that words (some far worse than the current one)
were offensive to many other people. The words are used regularly in
their music, on cable TV, and even by their parents without a bid of
thought. Actually, the Vice President was recently credited with using
a vulgar term for a physically impossible act.
Prehaps this is part of our role as Information Specialists to explain
the derivation of such terms in as delicate a fashion as we can. I
still remember how Mr. Wolcott, the Science teacher and WWII vet,
explained his reason for fnding the 1960's term "brownie points"
offensive. Most of us sheltered parochial school teens thought it was a
reference to being good little girl scouts. Mr. W managed to explain it
to us without having to use the words in the previously mentioned Toyota
advertisement either.
I think the explanation entailed telling us that the term came from
another term he had heard in the Army. Brown was the color the Point of
ones nose might become if one committed a degrading act of subservience
that he knew none of us would do. As high school seniors we were smart
enough to know what the even more vulgar terms were and that they were
highly offensive. Of course, we were also "sophisticated?" enough to
have developed a few to develop a few other euphemisms and jestures to
express our displeasure with other faculty members we thought were less
straight with us8-)
Dorothy Tissair, M.S., M.L.S.
Library Media Specialist
Old Saybrook, CT
dtissair@snet.net
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