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"Are you offended by..."

I had to "tone down" my A level English coursework because I had the following terms in which "may offend the examiners".

See if you find these terms offensive...

"I had to bus it like an minimum wage carwash employee"

"The bus driver looked remarkably like Manuel from Fawlty Towers and akin to him, he didn’t speak a word of English. "

"sweaty leering Turkish men"
(I cannot see how this is offensive) If they perspire they are sweaty, if they stare at you they are leering, they are certainly turkish and also men, why is this so "offensive?")

"demented taxi drivers"


Feedback please.

Aha, my commentary. I got set that today and in some ways it is absolutely great.

I will replace those things with other, less offensive, terms - and explain it in my commentary. I have very little else to write about except the structure and narative style I chose - which was rather simple.

The audience, I forgot to mention, is adult holiday makers of a rather insignificant age group - due to the fact the piece is aimed towards anyone considering holidaying in Marmaris.

The piece is written sort of passively and that would account for the slightly detached style of the extracts.

If this is your piece of writing for a reading audience then I would suggest that you do remove or alter them. Obviously the phrases appear far too colloquial to me to be regarded as written text - but then your narrative style might be that. You also should have told us the intended audience of your piece and the purpose of your piece - all things that are very important in English coursework.

And if you do, how are you going to justify keeping these phrases in in your commentary?

blank isn't any of those?

then he must be the devil

Kyz21 wrote:
> Do these offend you:
>
> "I had to bus it like an minimum wage carwash employee"

No, but I'm not a minimum wage carwash employee.

> "The bus driver looked remarkably like Manuel from Fawlty Towers
> and akin to him, he didn’t speak a word of English. "

No, but I'm not a foreign bus driver.

> "sweaty leering Turkish men"
> (I cannot see how this is offensive) If they perspire they are
> sweaty, if they stare at you they are leering, they are certainly
> turkish and also men, why is this so "offensive?")

No, but I'm not a Turk.

> "demented taxi drivers"

No, but I'm not a taxi driver.

Well, from my experience, examiners will always try to mark-you-down and help you to Fail wherever possible. And obviously, they'd be able to pick-up on these things easily, label them "offensive" (which they are, in certain ways!), and therefore, deny you the extra marks that could've given you that all-important `A*´, making all the difference.

Remember when they decided to knock-off a Grade from every-single-person's A-Level results the other year, just because it would make things "fairer" or something? My point exactly! :)

How can this be offensive? I've got away with worse comments in English about street criminals. none of these are offensive. It's not only Turks that have BO, for Chrissakes!

Psh. People take offense to such pointless things.

Keep it the way it is.

All could be offensive to someone, but thats life. People get offended too easily these days. I'd leave 'em in if I were you.

All could be offensive.

Anyone else?