Is 'Boffin' a Dirty Word? - Sixty Symbols 

The cut to Prof. Poliakoff made me laugh

The most important fact is being ignored here: Teenagers don’t read tabloids.

I'm in agreement with whatever Professor Ed Copeland has to say on the matter. He's my favourite Sixty Symbols boffin.

A **FAR** bigger problem is 'journalists' misrepresenting science because they don't understand it. This 'boffin debate' is just a pointless distraction.

Many Boffins died to bring us this information... 😢

When I started at Southampton University in 1983 (interestingly, Nottingham was my other choice!), I quickly acquired "Boffin" as a nickname. The reason I needed a nickname was that I was one of four guys in a shared kitchen who were ALL called Mike :) And the reason I was "Boffin Mike" was purely and simply this: I owned a ZX Spectrum. In those days, having a computer made you some sort of mysterious science wizard.

Should have labeled him "Martyn Poliakoff, boffin"

Took me a while to realise that 'clever' in the English school system was not a compliment but was viewed with a certain degree of suspicion. 'Bright' was the description you really wanted.

Being targeted by the Daily Star, is a universally admitted sign, that you are doing something right.

In American slang, "boffing" is a verb whose definition makes those headlines very funny.

On one hand, "Boffin" really does carry disparaging connotations. But I fear the semantic treadmill will keep on turning, no matter what the hacks and journos write or the punters read.

As a British physicist... I'm pretty disappointed in the IOP for putting so much effort into this campaign to be honest. As Dr Chapman says here, with all of the other problems both within academia and with its relationship with the public... is this really the best use of the IOP's time, budget, and access to the national attention span, all of which are limited quantities? The Daily Star posting headlines about boffins finding UFOs isn't what puts off kids from under-represented groups from choosing careers in science...

7:56 is exactly it. There are bigger problems with the media and science, but this is one more thing that drives a wedge.

This is the very first time I've ever heard of this term.

I remember in my childhood how when I started aspiring to become a scientist, I then got to know about this boffin stereotype, and felt like I would have to become this nerdy guy to be a scientist, which seriously made me consider other options, and I've only returned to this scientist idea in my uni years. So this notion had a real impact on me. I would say have an un-nerdy character and appearence. But I still like science a lot! And it's ok to not look like a scientist but still be one. And this thought is in particular important for children, as my own experience confirms.

Here in NZ we refer to very intelligent people as 'boffins'

Growing up in the UK I never felt "Boffin" to have a negative connotation. As a white, male child interested in science, I never found myself scared of a path where I might be called a "Boffin". If anything, I found it aspirational. However, as I think a couple of other commenters have raised (and the dall-e example shows) - it does rather conjur up an image of someone who is white and male. If you hear that "boffins" have made a research breakthrough, you don't imagine that anyone on that team might have been a woman. That's the real problem.

Prof. Moriarty has a point but I'm not sure it's worth getting worked up about. The general muddying of the water that the mainstream press does when it comes to helping the public understand science is a much bigger issue.

I genuinely find the Daily Star front page to be fascinating as a cultural artefact. The word boffin comes up a surprising amount, as do references to sitcom catchphrases from at least 35 years ago.

There is no surer way to boost the insulting power of a word than to admonish everyone not to use it

When I was at school in the 90s I was one of the smart kids and so was referred to disparagingly as a "boff", so I should probably want it banned too but I agree with all of Brady's counter-arguments to Prof. Moriarty, it's a pointless exercise and just paints those joyless boffins in a bad light for complaining about it. There are so many once benign words that have developed or been assigned negative connotations over the decades, it's tiring seeing the constant dancing back and forth about words and their apparently evolving meanings when the culture is the problem and banning a word changes nothing about that. Other bad words for scientists will likely just take their place. The bit about them being called "weirdos" just highlights that, it's an even more generic word so you have even less standing to complain about and control that. I really feel like being up in arms about the particular usage of particular words like that's where the strength in language is held and thinking that squashing it like a bug would fix the problem just has the whole understanding of the relationship between culture and language backwards. It's so frustrating seeing so many control freaks in positions of power waste time on it in recent years.

Emma's perspective was an interesting one that I wasn't expecting. Also, I would so much rather be a boffin than a nerd. A boffin can be a nerd but not necessarily the other way around. I get the impression that the big difference is a boffin is someone who actually _does_ something practical with her/her knowledge, whereas a nerd is just simply strongly passionate (perhaps even obsessive) about what they know. A boffin's stereotypical appearance is because of prioritizing their work over their health/aesthetic, whereas a nerd's stereotypical appearance is often just due to being socially inept.

Boffins? - leave the nerdy brainiacs alone! I mean ,fair play to all them eggheaded dateless wonders. One unscrambled my kids rubix cube for him in like no time. We was so impressed!

I’m an American, and we have our own slang, but I also lived in England for 3 years growing up (near Newcastle), and they have some bloody silly slang, and somehow their relationship with the press is in some ways even more ridiculous than ours.

I like how the Mirror took a good hard look at themselves, while the Star talked about aliens...

I'm only familiar with the term from James Burke's "Connections" shows, which I absolutely inhaled as a child. As an American, it's hard to imagine the term being seen as - or used as - disparagement. But then, there have been a few cases of pretty extreme and unexpected reactions from one side of the pond or another when a certain word has cultural weight people from the other side were unaware of.

The problem is judges, police officers, politicians, soldiers, veterans pretending THEY "know" anything about absolute quantifiable physical reality, especially history, especially causation in history & politics & war & law, what is a "crime" or what is "illegal" or that any negative event qualifies as "inciting violence", while having never studied or proved any of their claims, their experiences, happened as they claim they have, and stupidly generalizing what THEY deludedly think are "their experiences" somehow generalizes to anyone or anything else.

Where I'm from calling someone a boffin is the most sincere form of flattery from a non-technical person to a technical person.

Although I wouldn’t expect it to be used in a serious situation, I always found it to be a term of endearment

I'm writing this from across the pond, so we do not share identical lexica. Perhaps, if I were living in the UK, my feelings would be different, but, to my mind, "boffin" implies being at the top of the scientific hierarchy: the brainiest of the brainy. I have long since embraced the terms "nerd" and "egghead." Since my specialty is computer science, I have also embraced the term "geek." And I regularly, with pride, admit to being a "weirdo." To be brilliant and accomplished enough to be called a "boffin" is a high aspiration.

Thanks to this video and the petition I learnt a new word that, as a boffin, I'm going to start using! Thanks!

I consider it a playful form of envy, they hold you in high regard, take it as a sign of respect.

I think tabloids using the the least flattering term is par for the course.

Boffin is a compliment. Even Star Wars pointed out their sacrifice. "Many boffins died to bring us this information".

The main concern for me is that denigrating the source of information is a way to denigrate the information itself. Language is an ongoing negotiation, true, so I am fine with scientists clapping back. Oddly, I (M, 52, Aussie) use boffin but in rare contexts and its usually jokey not pejorative.

I can undestand physicists not being bothered by the term - I second the "we owned nerd" statement - but it is soo bizarre to see a petition to keep using the word espacially, as pointed out, with the last sentence. People will go above and beyond to fight for their 'right' to use a slightly more creative version of what in essence means "freak"... Edit: What Emma describes at 6:05 is probably also a strong reason for a lot of minorities in science to seemingly "care less" and it's so sad to have that....

We don't want youngsters to think becoming a scientist is beyond them. Scientists are just human beings.

0:28 that cut to Sir Poliakoff 👀 I think that derogatory use of "boffin" is anti-intellectualism which breeds a dangerous form of ignorance. But "boffin" in a transatlantic accent is kind of charming.

What we really need is a video of David Attenborough narrating the mating habits of the boffin.

I’m surprised that a real publication the Daily Star put out an Onion-level headline. “Eggheads want term ‘boffin’ banned” is objectively hilarious. one of the few times little harm is done by their stories. Its too funny to not be a joke. Journalists do need to stop using “scientist” and start having writing the specialty with a short definition. It lumps people into a different class of “smart people” when in reality, they just have specialized knowledge like any other skilled job. For example, Nurses, you will meet nurses who believe in the most batshit crazy stupidest pseudoscience you can hear of, yet can still save your life or successfully do the medical dirty-work to keep you healthy & healing. They are not “smart” they are skilled.

In America... Boffin might be confused with a verb meaning to... Uh... Participate in certain extracurricular activities.

Classic Boffin topic

I like the term boffin, but I (an American) am most familiar with it from the Leviathan trilogy. For me it has connotations of, "dealing with stuff nobody else understands" *shrug* but I also don't ever see it in the wild.

I was having this very discussion at work the other week. But I drew attention to it in the opposite way: "Look at the stupid journalists using words that haven't been in common usage for well over 50 years.... will they ever arrive in the 21st century?"

“Three super-boffins awarded Nobel Prize in physics…” 😂

2:41 is the most deliciously ironic and hilarious headline: "Eggheads want the term 'boffins banned..." 😂😅

Eh, across the pond here, and I'm familiar with the term 'boffin'. It struck me as quaint, but I can see how it might seem mildly insulting. I see Prof. Moriarty's point... we have a problem in the US with A Certain Segment Of Society who view scientists as magical creatures beholden to corporate interests capable of upending the natural order of things to make what is up, down, what is down, up, and so should be viewed with a strong measure of suspicion. But scientists are just people, flawed as anyone else, but often driven by a certain kind of passion for Something Specific. Heck, some of the best ones are frankly no more intelligent than some of the blue-collar workers... they just focused on a very specific subject to become an expert at that field of interest. And if someone has studied something to that degree, and they have something to say about that subject, maybe... listen, ask questions, and learn something?

Reclamation of the insult "nerd" is the aberration rather than the rule. As the Star themselves tacitly admit, "boffin" is synonymous with weirdo. I agree with Prof. Moriarty that it is a term used to denigrate and "other" STEM professionals as being useless academics counting angels on the heads of pins who are disconnected from the Real World. On this side of the pond, we have a similar issue with "ivory tower intellectuals."

I would place more importance on misuse of the word 'engineer' to mean technician or fitter. It sends an awful message to kids 'Oh, there's a puddle in the utility room darling, we need to call an engineer'. This puzzles americans, germans, italians, koreans, japanese - actually everyone. We don't call pharmacists doctors, or nurses surgeons. People in the comments, say 'oh it doesn't matter mate' - they probably were also fine with racist slurs and disparagement of women until recently.

Similarly, the word “tabloid” rather than “newspaper” is equally as disparaging and to me at least equates to “comic” or “beano”

"boffin" is a symptom of the larger problem which Moriarty addresses at the end: that scientists are being dehumanized by journalists

I agree with the take of Emma Chapman. Let's own the word and move on.

Show me a single child who has not pursued STEM, In reality, you're only talking about PhD level research scientists, because they didn't like the name and we can start to have a conversation. Otherwise this is a completely made up concern.

This is a recursive function: Boffins talking about boffins talking about boffins talking about boffins…

The whole of America lives without the term boffins, would be amazing how we could not use it every day of our lives and survive. Leave it up to the brits to only make things "easier" somehow when it's insulting people

I am a scientist. I hate being labelled a boffin. It feels dehumanising.

"Save Our Bottoms" is the kind of Freudian slip I can get behind.

Just like the terms egghead, nerd, geek, and others more common on this side of the pond…these terms don’t scare committed students of science away from the passions they hold for its exercise and study. If anything, they are badges of honor. If the teens one wants to inspire to become the next generation of scientists are the on-the-fencers for whom a disparaging term will be sufficient to scare them off, I would warrant those are NOT the souls one would want working on the next great discoveries, validating or falsifying contested theories, or pushing science forward into new realms of thought and conjecture. We need minds of all stripes who can push through that bulls**t and move humanity forward, the kind of thick-skinned, eyes down, get-it-done thinkers and doers that the scientific fields have always inspired and enticed to join their ranks.

I'm an American so I have a different take on this because I've never seen "boffin" as a derogatory term, to me it was just always a synonym or shorthand for scientist/researcher which I never thought of as derogatory either. But to Moriarty's point if you use the field/discipline you might still conjure up similar stereotypes. Personally, I think Emma Chapman had the most salient points, just embrace it and fight bigger fights.

I think it's simpler than that: Boffin sounds way to close to "Buffoon". And suddenly you are in an insult territory.

Speaking as someone with a couple of science degrees and the misfortune to live somewhere that they're seen as worse than useless, I'd be delighted and flattered if someone referred to me as a boffin. I do sympathise, I really do. Hats off to the tabloids though for their epic trolling responses. I was laughing so hard I cried.

As an American, I've always thought the word boffin was cool. Like yeah, I want to be a boffin one day. I'm sad to hear it's controversial because it has such a nice sound to it.

As a scientist in the U.S., I hadn't heard of this term before. But I can assure you I have been called worse things!

I can understand not liking the term boffin, but you have to understand that asking for the term to be banned may have a worse effect than not using the word at all. Brady is absolutely right.

This is why you make friends all over the world. I just love that first cut over to Sir Martyn! :D

Many boffins died to bring us this information

I can imagine it's the equivalent of saying "local city nerds/eggheads discover attosecond physics" - not endearing and pretty disrespectful, dismissive, and all-around unprofessional. Also, when the community you're slurring asks you to stop, you can no longer claim it's a "term of endearment". It's name-calling, plain and simple.

I think boffins sounds adorable, it's sounds better than nerd or geek. Be more concerned about combatting the anti-intellectuals.

To me, it's a quaintly old-fashioned term that only the tabloids and people from the black-and white era use. I've never heard anyone actually use it in real life.

This debate and the use of the word Boffin in this context is a symptom of a larger problem of education and understanding, where synonyms would be witch or wizard.

Do teenagers actually read tabloids? As an American, I don't know, but I would be very surprised if they do. Seems like nobody should pay any attention to tabloids, and if they do, it's their own fault.

When was the last time you saw a teenager reading a newspaper? They're an endangered species. Boffin is much less derogatory than 'egghead', 'nerd', 'geek' or 'swot'.

"Many Boffins died to bring us this information."

When we elevate labels above people, and use labels in dehumanising ways rather than for simple description, we do a group of people an injustice. Whether the label is technically accurate or colloquial, it's never the label that matters. "Woman", "man", "chick", "lad", "kid", "codger", "Christian", "Muslim", "nerd", "jock", "Trekkie", "Whovian", "trucker", "motorist"... Who among us can say that our minds don't immediately conjur up a basic set of assumptions when we read those words? Whether as a mental image or as a heuristic, abstract concept serving as our brain's definition of the world to make reading work. Labels can be empowering or denigrating, depending on how we, collectively, use them, but that's very rarely the fault of the word itself. Or they can be neutrally descriptive. Except human minds will always attach subjective connotations. When we allow society to share those connotations, you get stereotypes. Humans are prone to allowing ignorance to become assumptions, which in turn become stereotypes, which lead biases, which in turn become prejudices.

"Boffin" is such a good detector word! Whatever publication still insists on using it no matter what, is just a way to indicate to the potential readers that that publication is not worth reading. It is such a nice way to advertise to us up front that they (generally) have nothing good to contribute to society.

I have often feel the term boffin is more dismissive than anything. That scientists work on important things and that boffins work on pointless things.

It's only a "term of endearment" if the subject takes it that way.

I’m a scientist. I don’t like it. Is it even on my radar as something to fuss about? No.

I personally find it endearing

Well, it's in my vocab now!

It's just a word which doesn't hurt. They call us nerd, which still doesn't hurt. When they're hospitalised, they still don't realise it's scientists who save their lives. 😁

As someone from outside who isn't familiar with the word, it just sounds bad. If someone would have asked me what "boffins" might refer to, I'd probably said something like "idiots"; never would have guessed "scientists". It just sounds like a (soft) insult; something you say to make fun of a certain group of people. Not necessarily intentionally harmful, but inherently down playing any seriousness. Like calling a medical doctor a quack. Sure, you can use it jokingly here and there, but if you (and everyone else) use it completely synonymous, suddenly no one will take actual medical advise serious anymore. I'm sure the writers of these tabloids would also prefer not be universally referred to as hacks.

It's not the word, it's the tone it's used in. It's only disparaging because it's used disparagingly. Should the press knock if off? Absolutely. Will they? Absolutely not. Likewise though, others will protest it and should not give up the fight either.

If celebrated scientists embrace the label it'll have a more positive outcome, but I think science communicators have a role in gradually changing public perception to more surrepticiously tackle the stereotyping of scientists

I’m not sure older people like me consider the term “boffin” to be derogatory. It wasn’t when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s. So when did it become so, and who was responsible for that?

I loved Dr Chapman's response.

As someone who isn't and wasn't in an English-speaking country, what should I think when I hear the word for the first time? Well, it looks rather similar to "buffoon" and makes me question whether it is related somehow... After brief research, it seems like it doesn't share the origin, but might be balancing between being perceived exact opposite or the same, depending on who's looking at it...

"Boffin" feels like a playful term so if the work you are doing, whether it be research or development, is fun, playful, or not readily practical, then you are a boffin. I consider awardees of the Ignobel prize to be boffins.

Isnt this a subject for your Words Of The World channel, Brady? Yeah. I havent forgotten about that channel. 😏

A new word has just entered my universe and I expect to start seeing it everywhere.

British tabloids: articles written by people fired by the Beano; printed on paper rejected by Andrex.

FYI : "Buffo" is a true Betelgeusion word, like "Zappo" (as used in a conversation between Ford and Zaphod at the Restaurant at the end of the Universe) 😊 🇳🇱👍🏻🤝🏻

I'm from the UK and this is the first time I've ever heard the word. Who even cares about what tabloid readers think

As someone with friends in marginalised groups, I can understand where terms can become a whole other thing. To call Eddie Izzard a word that starts with T and ends with Y minimalises their intelligence and humour, boiling them down to only one facet of themselves. Calling a person of colour by one of the derogatory terms used historically to describe them dehumanises them, exactly as Prof Moriarty describes. If a term bothers someone, we shouldn't use it to refer to them, and we most definitely shouldn't do it in a way that stabs them again in the kidneys from behind as we profess our "love" for these people.

Admittedly English isn't my first language, but I do speak it for quite some time and I never came across that word. It does sound little disparaging, not gonna lie. It makes me think of the word buffoon, it has the same sort of vibe.

I learnt a new word that describes me due to leaving this term boffin. Arcane describes me well

To be fair, the 4 journalists left on this planet aren't using this term. It's just all those imposters who need to compensate for something.

Many Boffins died to bring us this information.

I've never heard this word before and I'm going to pretend like I still haven't.

You should have asked who they would consider a "boffin". Can I be called a boffin? I would like to!