back to article Scientists speak their brains: Please don’t call us boffins

The UK’s Institute of Physics (IOP) is calling on the popular press to ditch the term “boffin” when referring to scientists. The 150-year-old organization's survey of 1,000 young people and 1,514 adults found using the term “boffin” to refer to scientists was confusing and heavily gendered. It may even put people off studying …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm

    Rachel Youngman is complaining about gendered terminology?

    Until I see someone referred to as a boffinne or boffiness I'm hard pressed to say boffin is a strictly gendered term, no?

    1. Steve Button Silver badge

      Re: Hmmm

      "more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman."

      I wonder if they did the same study, and asked with "Scientist" what the results would be?

      It's not that the word "Boffin" is a problem, it's just that people expect scientists to be men. And they mostly are, unfortunately.

      However, that's a reflection on reality. People expect that because that's what they see.

      We might be able to change that, by encouraging more girls to go into STEM subjects.

      Although, perhaps we'll never get to 50/50 as men tend to be more interested in things, and women more interested in people. Perhaps, just a gut feeling. Could be wrong.

      We would start using the term "boffinx" and that would solve everything, and keep everyone happy, right?

      1. LogicGate Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        Start using "Puffins" instead. The term is well documented to cover both males and females, and it awakens only positive feelings.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hmmm

          Sexless "Triffids" would evoke more shock and awe though. Maybe a more effective threat for pushing through budget requests? Although it could backfire.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm

            Although it could backfire

            I hear being beheaded with a Triffid gun can, erm, sting a bit...

        2. NightFox

          Re: Hmmm

          Egg-heads, because surely an egg has to be gender-inclusive?

        3. Ideasource

          Re: Hmmm

          Puffins, inspires the idea of a bunch of penguins goofing off all day,

          Or a overdressed braggart.

          Ie

          Don't worry about them Puffins, they complain a lot while wearing expensive clues but ultimately it's all hot air.

          You know penguins are thugs right?

          Take a look at adolescent penguin behavior.

          It's brutal what they do to entertain themselves at the expense another penguins.

          Including but not limited to raping penguin chicks literally to death

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hmmm

          "brainiacs" seems a good enough alternative to me if they don't like "boffins"

      2. alain williams Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        "more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman."

        The terms below are not gendered but I suspect that when you see them you will associate male or female with most of them.

        Is the fix to: a) ban the term; b) preferentially recruit until equal numbers of men & women do the jobs; c) accept that men & women gravitate to different jobs ?

        Nurse; Fire fighter; Road sweeper; House builder; Shipyard worker; Air plane pilot; Soldier; School dinner person; Train driver; Car mechanic; Office cleaner; Crèche assistant; Electrician; Sound engineer; Nanny.

        I do know that people of both do the above jobs, but still ...

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          84% of primary school teachers in the UK are female. 63% of secondary school teachers in the UK are female. Yet in SLT and head teacher roles the numbers are much more even.

        2. Dizzy Dwarf

          Re: Hmmm

          ... so, there was no need for Robin Williams to dress up in the 'Mrs. Doubtfire' documentary.

          Hours a day wasted in make-up, just to fit a non-existent gender stereotype.

          1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            "Hours a day wasted in make-up, just to fit a non-existent gender stereotype."

            He did pretend not to be himself, however.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Hmmm

          I once saw a photo of a rather attractive young steam engine driver - judging from the hat she was wearing - but I don't think she was on the clock as her overalls didn't seem to be in an OSH inspection ready state.

          1. Sceptic Tank Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            Link?

          2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            The last time I visited the Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales, both drivers and one of (two) firemen of the locomotives behind which I travelled were young women. As an organisation they have a superbly effective approach to diversity. The physical appearance of their staff does not seem relevant to me.

            1. jollyboyspecial

              Re: Hmmm

              "The last time I visited the Talyllyn Railway in mid-Wales, both drivers and one of (two) firemen of the locomotives behind which I travelled were young women. As an organisation they have a superbly effective approach to diversity. The physical appearance of their staff does not seem relevant to me."

              If we're talking gendered terminology here I think you might need to rethink the word "firemen"

              1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

                Re: Hmmm

                Really? Is 'woman' a man in disguise?

                Some folks seem to get so bothered by trivia as it is easier than tackling actual real-world problems like why so few women apply for certain jobs.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Hmmm

                From Wikipedia on the origins of the word "man" -

                "In Old English the words wer and wīf were used to refer to "a male" and "a female" respectively, while mann had the primary meaning of "person" or "human" regardless of gender. Both wer and wyf may be used to qualify "man"; for example:

                God gesceop ða æt fruman twegen men, wer and wif

                (then at the beginning, God created two human beings, man and woman)"

                So wer-man was shortened to man, while wyf-man was transformed to woman.

                1. Billy Twillig

                  Re: Hmmm

                  Ummm, so “werewolf” is gendered.

                  Time to fix it before full moon next week?

              3. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Hmmm

                Why?

                In various formal organisations, regardless of gender, you are referred to as Sir.

                Maybe we need to start thinking of the words "men" or "man" as being neutral and doing away with "woman" and "women"...it's way easier.

              4. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Hmmm

                It doesn't matter until your 100kg+ ass needs to be dragged out of a train wreck by someone half your size.

          3. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            "didn't seem to be in an OSH inspection ready state"

            You sure?

        4. Norman Nescio

          Re: Hmmm

          Is an HF radio engineer a Ground plane pilot?

        5. Twanky

          Re: Hmmm

          I do know that people of both do the above jobs, but still ...

          both?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm

            Country and Western

        6. Twanky

          Re: Hmmm

          I take your point about some job roles having gender connotations.

          I note that the only term in your list which has been mangled* is 'School dinner person'. Presumably because we find it difficult to call a bloke a 'dinner lady'. 'Caterer' probably encompasses most of the role or possibly 'lunchtime assistant'.

          What I would take issue with is reading gender into terms like 'chairman' just because it has the 13th, 1st and 14th letter of an alphabet in that order within the term. So does 'human' but it definitely encompasses everybody in my opinion. Yes, I know we can use phrases like 'in the chair' or 'chair of the board' but that brings me back to my (mild) objection to 'dinner person'.

          I met someone recently who described themselves as a 'manageress' - I found it jarring but certainly not something to object to in casual conversation. A totally unnecessary extension of the word in my opinion.

          *persongled if you like.

          1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

            Re: Hmmm

            There are perfectly good terms already.

            For example Male dinner lady, murse (male nurse), lady policeman, etc.

            1. Twanky

              Re: Hmmm

              murse (male nurse)

              One of my nephews is a psychiatric nurse. I wouldn't like to call him a 'murse'. He looks like and is the sort of person it would be a bad idea to annoy unnecessarily. He describes himself as a nurse.

              1. Korev Silver badge
                Unhappy

                Re: Hmmm

                I'm related to a psychiatric nurse who does cross fit and is rather big and strong. The cops dropped off one of their patients who'd "gone for a walk", took the handcuffs off, left as soon as they could and the patient saw the nurse as another figure of authority and floored him! I believe Vitamin H was served shortly afterwards...

          2. Sam_B.

            Re: Hmmm

            Manageress is unnecessarily genderising a previously ungendered role.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Hmmm

              It's just completely wrong. The word is "womynager".

            2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

              Re: Hmmm

              From ménager, which is, of course, completely non gender stereotyped.

          3. Long John Silver
            Pirate

            Re: Hmmm

            Madam Chairman, and Chairwoman, if one must, but never just Chair.

            One can "sit in the Chair", "Chair a meeting", and "sit on a chair".

            It once was a convention to use "he" to cover male and female - a generic person - instead of circumlocution (e.g. he/she, he or she) and grammar-twisting as with "they". If a specific sex is meant, context may resolve ambiguity. For females, we have "she", and "her". When "he" is meant exclusively as male, that can be stated early in the discourse; that's if not bleedin' obvious as when discussing prostate diseases.

            I adhere to conventional English usage. He was chooses not to descends into a pit of inelegant prose.

          4. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm

            "Presumably because we find it difficult to call a bloke a 'dinner lady'."

            That's not true, a mate of mine the other day wore a baggy knee length lab coat with ketchup stains unironically and we referred to him as a dinner lady the entire day.

        7. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          While overal differences between men and women explain SOME of the difference between number of men and number of women in technical jobs (some of which you listed) the current difference is vastly bigger and cannot be explained that way. If it was ONLY down to overal difference in temperament between the groups lots of those jobs should have at worse a 60-40 men-woman split. There is no need to accept that men and women gravitate to different jobs because that is already accepted. The big problem is that a big driver keeping women away from tech jobs isn't biological at all, but cultural. And that culture should probably change because it doesn't benefit anyone.

          1. My-Handle

            Re: Hmmm

            I think the split is probably more naturally polarised than you think.

            While I was studying psychology at university, I was told about a study done in Israel where a group of children were brought up with no reference to their gender. Boys and girls were not influenced in what they wore, who they played with etc.

            It was found that in the absence of this influence, boys and girls were actually more likely to choose gender-stereotypical roles than otherwise.

            I can't find a link to this study, so treat the above as the anecdote that it is, but I have found this article https://bigthink.com/the-present/gender-equality-paradox/, which links it's sources.

            The target here shouldn't be a near-even representation of men and women in a given role, and the lack of such a representation shouldn't necessarily reflect badly on an industry or discipline. What we should have is equal opportunity - if a man or woman wants to pursue a career in an industry that is more typically pursued by the other gender, they should be able to do that without bias. As you say, there are industries at present that have a strong cultural bias for / against a particular gender and that does need to change.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Hmmm

            I don't agree...whilst tech can be pretty hostile in general (regardless of gender), it has never been, in my opinion, generally hostile towards women. I am not aware of any machismo in tech. Don't get me wrong, the sheer amount of pale skin and skinny arms might seem macho to some, but it really isn't.

            Also, tech generally isn't that physical of a job...so the physical differences between men and women don't matter at all.

            What I suspect drives women away from tech is a) socially, it's a really shit profession b) it is full of weirdos (lot's of us can pass as human, but there is a large number of people that just can't, they usually have anime wallpaper and toys on their desks. We can't really escape that). and c) It can be a very solitary profession, which isn't a very attractive proposition for women, they are natural collaborators...even to men (which is why we constantly have shortages of engineers) finally d) it's not very formal which can make it hard to navigate and seem daunting. There is very rarely a clear hierarchy amongst nerds...regardless of job titles...unless the shit hits the fan.

            Bottom line, our industry is jam packed with fucking socially awkward weirdos with no filter. We're not sexist, we're just not attractive. Further more, it's not the culture itself that might be putting women off, it's that the culture is pretty deep, has a long history and can seem impenetrable (even to men)...how many professions out there are likely to have a debate in the middle of the day over whether Chief O'Brien technically abandoned his family when he swapped places with himself? How many people even know what that means, and how many people have enough fucks to give to point out the deliberate flaws in that statement?

            Now here is the rub, either you're outraged by the first part of the post, in which case, congratulations, you work in an area of the industry that is reasonably enlightened, or you are outraged over the statement about O'Brien...in which case you are the problem.

      3. imanidiot Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        I think it's not just about encouraging girls into STEM subjects, but there's also still changes in culture that need to be made. While I can't speak for the experiences of women, I've picked up enough through complaints/stories from my (fortunately growing) number of female colleagues about what it's like to work in a highly technical field as a woman. Unfortunately it's still very much a "mens world" and there's still many women changing away to less male dominated fields both during their education and their career.

        1. unimaginative
          Happy

          Re: Hmmm

          I think what keeps girls out of STEM subjects is not gendered language, or deliberate discrimination. It is what society expects of them and who influences them.

          My daughter is doing engineering. Still not a common choice for a girl. She was the only girl in her A level electronics class, I think she is the only one doing electrical engineering in her year of her degree apprenticeship.

          What is different about how her interests were formed is that, because my ex was bone idle, I worked from home from when my daughter was and she was home educated for most of secondary school and a bit of primary, she spent far more time with me than most girls do with their fathers - so she picked up my interests just from talking to me, and playing with me, learning hobbies from me, reading books I suggested, and helping me fix things - all the things boys do with dad.

          Yes, she could have picked all that up from a mother, but as long as there are fewer women in engineering and technology there will be fewer who can pass on those interests to their daughters which then means fewer women in engineering and technology.

          STEM cannot be lumped together either - lots of girls are now doing science and maths, but not the more practical subjects.

      4. Missing Semicolon Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Hmmm

        I will tell my daughter (PhD student, optics) she is a "boffette".

    2. Ididntbringacoat

      Re: Hmmm

      How about "boffette", or "boffinette"?

      1. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Hmmm

        Hmm, the problem there is that the "ette" ending has the primary meaning of "small" and the feminine is a secondary meaning - compare with the masculine ending "et".

        So "boffinette" and "boffinet" would be the gendered words for, say, anyone pre-doctorate.

        (In case you were wondering, a "(drum) majorette" is a diminutive, female, version of a drum major: the latter manoeuvres a large baton, approximately[1] 2m, to keep the marching and in time and directed - ref. the end credits of "Thunderbirds Are Go!" - whilst the former flings about a small baton. Guess what I think the word "bachelorette" means!)

        [1] approximately!

        1. Dr Fidget

          Re: Hmmm

          ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Vimes. ‘A monarch’s an absolute ruler, right? The head honcho—’

          ‘Unless he’s a queen,’ said Carrot.

          Vimes glared at him, and then nodded.

          ‘Okay, or the head honchette—’

          ‘No, that’d only apply if she was a young woman. Queens tend to be older. She’d have to be a … a honcharina? No, that’s for very young princesses. No. Um. A honchesa, I think.’

          Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett

        2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          If it's Germanic in origin, it's already feminine.

      2. Norman Nescio
        Joke

        Re: Hmmm

        Shirley the feminine (unnecessary in these enlightened times) would be boffeen: like the Irish colleen. Written nicely, it would be boffín.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmm

        Boffinette is a very small basement laboratory with formica benches where now unfashionable science is still being done on a shoestring.

        1. that one in the corner Silver badge

          Re: Hmmm

          "Abigail's Petri"

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        The original isn't gendered

        boffin | ˈbäfən |

        noun British informal

        a person engaged in scientific or technical research: a computer boffin.

        a person with knowledge or a skill considered to be complex, arcane, and difficult: he had a reputation as a tax boffin, a learned lawyer.

        Nothing here is gendered or degrading. Neither is calling someone an expert.

        Saying that only boffins need apply would be exclusionary. Calling someone a boffin is a complement, albeit cryptic.

        I'd say the real problem is sample bias in the survey, the number of experienced professionals that don't have time to talk to people taking surveys tracks with pay rate, competence, and experience.

        If we let them redefine this to mean something discriminatory, it will be another sad loss at the hands of the uninformed. It will gain us nothing, and they will just go on to complain about whatever term replaces it.

        Indelicately, we did the same for idiots, morons and retards. Inventing new PC words failed, and we just kept adding new euphemisms to the list of "no longer preferred" words.

      5. DeathSquid

        Re: Hmmm

        Boffatrix.

    3. Mark 85

      Re: Hmmm

      Sadly, too many seem to look for something to take offense about. Seems the culture wars are more about attention than actually doing something to solve problems. I find the term "inclusive" to be somewhat ambiguous in that it leads to quotas. Such as "we need "X" numbers for this no matter how unqualified they might be." which I've actually seen some years ago whith some companies hiring less than qualified people to fill a quota.

      People are strange critters and very tribal to say the least. <sigh>

      Disclaimer... I'm old, I'm cranky.... now get off my lawn.

    4. Manolo
      Joke

      Re: Hmmm

      I propose boffinette.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Hmmm

        "I propose boffinette"

        And I'd accept, if only you'd remembered the punctuation:

        I propose, Boffinette.

    5. Duncan10101

      Re: Hmmm

      In the face of the evidence presented, I have to agree with the deboffination idea.

      The thing is- English is as English does. So if the majority of people are using Boffin in a derogatory or sexist way, then it essentially IS derogatory and sexist, and the OED will have to be updated to accommodate its modern use.

      I'm a software developer, not a scientist, but I've seen "Boffin" applied to devs more times than I can count, so let me give a dev's perspective. Our industry is horrendously skewed in favour of males. I'm sure many readers will agree it's pretty depressing. But the workforce is shaped that way, because people are employed from a talent pool that is shaped that way. The talent pool is mainly from universities or previous jobs, both of which suffer from the same problem in the relevant subjects.

      (And, yes, the skewed workplace produces a work culture that's downright misogynist)

      So real change will have to come-up through culture change in homes, schools, colleges and universities before the workplace starts to look sensible ... it's not a problem you can "Fix" with quotas. Losing the word Boffin will probably have a positive effect on all stages of the system, so I say "Go for it." It definitely won't solve the problem but (given the perception of the word) it's a small step in the right direction.

    6. jollyboyspecial

      Re: Hmmm

      In common usage the word boffin isn't gendered.

      However the only people who use the word these days seem to be lazy journalists. Including the ones at El Reg

    7. Billy Twillig

      Re: Hmmm

      From the Cambridge English Dictionary:

      “a scientist who is considered to know a lot about science and not to be interested in other things:

      a technical/computer boffin“

      If a person wishes to study the sciences, I bet they know how to look up a word. Just not in OED Online. It costs £100.

  2. Twanky

    ...said in UK and Ireland, the formal study of physics struggles to attract girls, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, people of Black Caribbean descent, people with disabilities, and LGBT+ young people into the subject.

    "We need to do absolutely everything we can to break down the barriers young people face and the language used by our media can play a really important role in that," she said.

    Absolutely everything? What do you mean? Even educate them?

    It seems to me that if STEM subjects are perceived to be difficult or boring then young people may be reacting to a bad rep rather than terms like 'boffin'.

    Perhaps if a career in boffinry was seen to be financially rewarding then more might want to pursue such a course.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Perhaps if a career in boffinry was seen to be financially rewarding then more might want to pursue such a course."

      Very much this! My wife has an advanced degree in Biology. She tells people that ask her about the field, to choose a business, finance or administration degree instead.

      For a science degree you work just as hard (or more likely much harder) than in business school, but your career options are much more limited, or at least much lower paying. With a science degree, you either have a PhD, or you are "just a technician". As a technician, you will get treated like a second class citizen, and get paid like one. If you work hard, and get a PhD, you will likely spend most of your career chasing soft money grant funding, all the while wondering if you will have a job two months from now when your current grant money runs out. Maybe, if you are "lucky", you can find a teaching job at a university. However, more and more, universities are hiring lecturers at much lower pay, and not hiring professors with a PhD. So, teaching jobs are in short supply.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Agreed

        My wife has a PHD and has done a post-doctoral study here in Australia.

        She specialised in Evolutionary Entomology + Ecology.

        She left Academia and got an entry level job in the public service in NSW and got paid more than she had in the 4 years of paid research.

        She also was not expected to work a 80hr week. She also recommends others do not try to work in boffinry.

        If we do not pay people properly, why would we expect them to stay? Incidentally men are more likely (found in western studies) to remain in a job they dislike, this then would mean men would be more likely to remain in these fields which have a poor work-life balance.

        1. unimaginative

          Re: Agreed

          Which jobs they dislike though?

          I would expect men to be more likely to stay in well paid jobs they dislike - not most fields of academic research.

  3. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    Paging Ms. Streisand

    If they want people to call them boffins more frequently, they are off to a running start.

    1. Sean o' bhaile na gleann

      Re: Paging Ms. Streisand

      Indeed so.

      'Boffin' for me is an old, almost defunct term - I haven't heard it being used for many a year

      The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.

      *deep sigh* ... and there, lower down El Reg's front page "Boffins claim discovery of the first piezoelectric liquid"

      Just to prove me wrong.

      1. Paul Kinsler

        Re: The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.

        Of course, different people will have different opinions on these names. For myself, although "boffin" seems a bit old fashioned, it has never had particularly negative associations, which were largely along the lines of "some sort of sciencey type, who we don't really understand, but has done something clever" - and that may have just saved the day in some old war film or 50s scifi movie - and so I would not mind particularly being called a boffin.

        On the other hand, I consider "geek" or "nerd" to be essentially terms of insult or abuse, specifically because of how those words were being used when I first heard them. I therefore am not particularly keen on their current widespread usage, but seeing as nowadays - at least in most media output - the implication seems not to be abusive in intent, I see little point in making a big issue of it. And I certainly meet people who say that for them "geek" or "nerd" have never had any negative associations, and who will happily identify as one.

        1. TRT

          Re: The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.

          I have a t-shirt with Ancient Geek on it.

          1. ChrisC Silver badge

            Re: The current terminology is 'Geek' or 'Nerd', I believe.

            Beta that generates a few comments...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Paging Ms. Streisand

        The "B" in boffin is for British, isn't it?

      3. tekHedd

        So they're saying there's a power imbalance?

        "Geek" and "Nerd" are, of course, derogatory terms, generally used ironically by techies to refer to themselves. When others use them, or even worse when non-techies refer to themselves as "nerds", it's basically a kind of bigotry.

        But, as geeks, we understand that human society and psychology is such that they can use these terms and genuinely not think they're doing harm, so we mostly ignore it. Also that we have nicer cars than they do, so there's not much of a power imbalance overall and it's generally not an issue.

        Same logic applies to scientists.

        But I'm still confused. "Boffin" is gendered? If that's the case then Nerd is too and I"m going to start calling hipsters racist.

        1. disgruntled yank

          Re: So they're saying there's a power imbalance?

          Originally, a geek was someone who bit off chicken's heads at the circus sideshow. I suppose that it is only in the last half-century that it expanded to take in those imagined to be longer on tech skills than social skills or grooming.

          And the odds are long that any American who speaks of boffins learned it from El Reg.

        2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

          Re: So they're saying there's a power imbalance?

          "Geek" and "Nerd" are, of course, derogatory terms, generally used ironically by techies to refer to themselves. When others use them, or even worse when non-techies refer to themselves as "nerds", it's basically a kind of bigotry.

          I've heard both terms being used for and by non-technical people, and in a non-derogatory way, when referring to being very into a particular subject...for example someone describing themselves as being "a bit of a history geek" or "nerding out about post-modernist architecture"

      4. Simon Harris

        Re: Paging Ms. Streisand

        I think there’s a bit of a difference.

        A boffin, to me, is someone who actually does science.

        A geek or nerd may do science, but it might also refer to someone who just has an intense interest in it, or some other subject, not necessarily scientific, for example you could be a language nerd or a history geek. But I’ve never heard boffin used outside of science.

      5. Ideasource

        Re: Paging Ms. Streisand

        Geek refers to amateur fanaticism with spastic expression

        Nerd refers to a chronic meticulousness and predilection towards deep study as a personal trait.

        To refer to a scientist as either within their professional balliwick would be to deny that they are a scientist and to virtually call them a charlatan.

  4. GBE

    I, for one, would be honored!

    Weird. I would be quite proud to be referred to as a "boffin" (if I weren't just a lowly engineer). There are people who find it insulting? I also had no idea it was a "gendered" term.

    1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      Likewise, it never occurred to me it was gendered. I just assumed it was multi-gender, in the same way as formal terms such as doctor, professor, engineer, or informal terms such as expert, whizz, genius.

      Extending the thinking, even terms at the other end of the scale, such as idiot, are gender-neutral.

      1. LogicGate Silver badge

        Re: I, for one, would be honored!

        If I recall correctly, Eric Winkle Brown flew with "boffins" of both genders, and he was most impressed by the physical abuse they (especially some of the ladies) were prepared to undergo in orther to progress science.

        1. RPF

          Re: I, for one, would be honored!

          Seriously different generation now than the E.W Brown era.....

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I, for one, would be honored!

          Eric Brown referred to some of the highly talented women he worked with in his career as 'boffinettes' in his book Wings on My Sleeve.

      2. Vometia has insomnia. Again. Silver badge

        Re: I, for one, would be honored!

        Same here, too: it'd never occurred to me it might be a men-only thing. Maybe the respondents might question their own ideas; or maybe we should just be suspicious of the way the question was posed...

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I, for one, would be honored!

        And I thought the feminine term for idiot is blonde.

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      If I were smart enough to be a boffin, I'd have no problem with being a boffin.

      Likewise, I don't interpret it as a gendered term. There's no boffiness, boffinette, or whatever. However I do usually think that boffins are male because, well, because they are. Think about it, it's like Sabine Hossenfelder versus a comically long list of men.

      But, there you go, it's so easy these days to moan about a word given connotations that might not necessarily be shared by others (master and slave devices come to mind) in the name of "inclusiveness" than to actually do something to encourage females to consider nerdy subjects and not run in the opposite direction.

      Please allow me to point everybody at this video which neatly demonstrates the entire problem.

    3. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      I've always felt it was a puerile tabloid word used by people who are without a clue about what they are talking about.

      1. Jan 0 Silver badge

        Re: I, for one, would be honored!

        I assume you've just stumbled upon what you'd call a puerile tabloid: El Reg.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: I, for one, would be honored!

          You can assume that I don’t know what you are on about.

          1. My-Handle

            Re: I, for one, would be honored!

            He means that The Register has used the word "boffin" as a term of endearment for scientists in it's reporting for quite a number of years now.

            Edit: I found a link to some of The Register's jargon, dated 2001. I'm sure there are more terms they've used, but I got bored of looking :)

            https://www.theregister.com/2001/02/02/the_quick_guide_to_register/

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: I, for one, would be honored!

              I know that. The bit I am missing is that we should all know that register takes great pride in using tabloids puerilsims.

              He should know that, as he has one of those grey shields things against his name. He should also know that anyone with a grey shieldy thing has not just stumbled onto Register.

    4. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      "(if I weren't just a lowly engineer)"

      No such thing. Us "lowly" engineers make the world work. Be proud of it!

    5. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      I still like the other WW2 term we had - The Wheezers & Dodgers :)

    6. NXM Silver badge

      Re: I, for one, would be honored!

      "if I weren't just a lowly engineer"

      Shirley you're a boffineer then, like me. I'll have a business card made with that on.

  5. codejunky Silver badge

    Meh

    "while 18-24-year-olds are nearly 80 percent more likely to view it as an insult than a compliment."

    Probably due to what is banded about as science at the moment. Things more akin to fad or fashion than intelligent work, and when someone who appears a boffin shows up he gets criticized for the clothes that dont conform to modern over-sensitivities. Example of over-sensitivities is the stupid idea of boffin to be a gendered term. But its all about the feelz isnt it?

    1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Meh

      Just tell the kids that "boffin" is an identity and they'll all want to be one.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Meh

      "Probably due to what is banded about as science at the moment."

      The Lord HawHaw of Tufton speaketh?

  6. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Devil

    Whereas

    BOFHin does tend to produce a stereotyped image of a male in my mind.

    1. Vometia has insomnia. Again. Silver badge

      Re: Whereas

      Some of the most formidable I've worked with in the past have been women, though that's going back to the days when we had proper ops departments...

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Whereas

      Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink Jr.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eloi vs Boffins

    I have considerable sympathy for this. Boffin is a term created by the lorded classes to identify and segment the technical classes. In doing so, it means they can be ignored in any decision of strategic importance.

    In Germany (and lets face it they have a considerable better record is promoting science in industry), the term Herr Engineer and Herr Professor is used. the terms give equal footing to the management ranks, rather than the UK terms which is designed to conjure up absent minded blokes who see less sunshine than an average Morlock.

    It seems to me that it is a classic British device of creating class division and is used to create segmentation and a silo mentality.

    1. cd27idw

      Re: Eloi vs Boffins

      I don't know why they're getting so het up about the media. How they relate us (or don't ) is irrelevant. Everyone creates their own gods and demons, none more so than the media. It's how impose order on the world about us. As engineers and scientists we facilitate and enable societies, we have done since the Industrial Revolution. The media on the other hand, is a bourgeious construct, whose sole predication is hegemony. They will always marginalise and/or negate anyone who raises their head above the parapet. It's the only way they can invest themselves with any societal value.

    2. tekHedd

      Re: Eloi vs Boffins

      The upper classes like it that we divide ourselves into little camps and argue with each other, because that is energy that might otherwise be directed at them.

      We Americans mostly don't understand how much of this kind of thing is actually redirected side effects of class disparity. I mean, we're just starting to see it, but we're also really, really good at advertising, so don't expect it to ever come to anything.

    3. Manolo
      Headmaster

      Re: Eloi vs Boffins

      In German that would be Herr Ingenieur (or Frau Ingenieurin).

  8. TimMaher Silver badge
    Headmaster

    And in other news...

    The article headline presented just to the left of this, in my browser, mentions “Cambridge boffins”.—-> icon.

    Hmm...

  9. TheMaskedMan Silver badge

    Can't say I've ever considered boffin to have any gender - they're just clever folks who come up with (usually) good ideas.

    As for the concept of someone sitting alone in a lab, tinkering with their latest creation - it may be a cliché, but it may also have some grounding in fact. How many of us have sat up all night fiddling with our latest hobby project? How many other folks would want to? It's just part of what makes us tick. Is it an essential trait? No, of course not, but boffinry tends to attract people who get engrossed in their work. Rather than trying to change that, maybe we could try showing folks how engrossing it really is.

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Boffin

      ICON

      they're just clever folks who come up with unusually good ideas, (Bouncing Bomb springs to mind).

      FTFY

  10. AnotherName
    Coat

    Deter people from studying in the field?

    I thought they were called farmers, not boffins.

    1. TRT

      Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

      Farmer is a term reserved for people who are not just studying but are indeed outstanding in their field.

      1. Snowy Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        I thought they where Scarecrows

    2. fidodogbreath
      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        Great link. This one made me laugh: "I don't know what going too far means"

      2. Snowy Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        Interesting link but kind of empty of content. Like what are they replacing field (or even work) with?

        Both field and work can be said to have "have racist connotations related to slavery" if you think about it too much. There are very few words that can not become toxic if you willing to twist it's meaning enough.

        That aside I did find it rather odd the picture at the top showing a young person in rather short shorts.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        As if working in fields wasn't rewarding and character building. I spent a season grape picking in France on a small vineyard - absolutely back breaking but the owners were fantastic people and we all worked together, drank together, and ate together. A great experience. I had such a great time I tried to refuse payment at the end, but they wouldn't have it. Viva le vendage.

        1. Caver_Dave Silver badge
          Mushroom

          Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

          I would love to still be working in the fields, except it doesn't pay as much as my family would like to spend!

          I even worked my way up to Deputy President of the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs (England and Wales).

          ICON: when I was 14, I was stubble burning on a very bright summers day with not a cloud in the sky. My gang (I was the eldest) managed to burn around all the headlands of a 10 acre field simultaneously and then it fire-stormed to the middle in a few seconds, producing a cloud very much looking like this ===========>

          Police turned up from all directions within 10 minutes to find a completely bare field with hardly a black smut left.

      4. TRT

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        One of our researchers has just come back from a field trip to the jungle. Now I'm confused.

    3. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

      I thought they were called farmers, not boffins.

      I'm sure there are farmers boffin in the fields, along with muffin the mules and dobbin the donkeys.. But physicists also study in fields, often electromagnetic and gravitational. Problem is phsyics is hard, although..

      There are six types, known as flavors, of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom

      6 genders of quarks! Bit of rebranding and less need to worry about not having a 'u' in flavor, which is not very inclusive but then it doesn't have an 'i' either. Might want to rebrand the strange quark to something potentially less offensive. There's also a huge issue that much of physics contains things named after dead white men, so there's scope to make this more inclusive as well. Rename Fermions to OGradyions? Paris is burning, a dead celeb grabs the headlines. Perhaps we have the wrong priorities?

      Or perhaps the IOP does. Rather than doing right-on, politically correct boffoonery, why not get back to basics and look at the way STEM is taught in schools. Some of it will still be hard, but figure out ways to make it interesting and appeal to those young, malleable brains. Make science cool again! There's some great science communicators on YT who've figured out ways to get complex messages across in interesting and entertaining ways, eg Kyle Hill. No idea what his audience's demographics are, but maybe that's something the IOP could ask, or study?

      Something I've noticed is after watching different communicators explaining concepts, I generally grasp the idea more than I would in some of the formal lectures that are online. Latest is pondering how to patent ZPE, assuming that could be made to work. A pretty complex area of physics with some diverging views, but a neat concept. Except if you could tap into ZPE, how would you patent this given patent offices routinely reject anything where Eout>Ein? Could be fun arguing that it's not 'perpetual motion', it's quite the opposite.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        I had forgotten these ...

        Henceforth instead of all this he/him, she/her, them/they lark, I shall be referred to as strange/bottom

      2. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        > There are six types, known as flavors, of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom

        No, no, you can't use "top" and "bottom", they have far too many connotations and will upset people.

        We'll just have to go back to the old alternative names for the t and b quarks, "truth"[1] and "beauty".

        [1] As t is the last on the list to be found, "The Search for Truth" was a much better title than using "Top"!

        1. NiceCuppaTea

          Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

          But who's "truth" will it be?

        2. Francis Boyle

          So it's come to this

          Kink shaming fundamental particles. Though I have it on good authority that strange quarks would rather be known as queer.

      3. that one in the corner Silver badge

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        > Except if you could tap into ZPE, how would you patent this

        Surely "Star Gate: Atlantis" is prior art, rendering such a patent invalid?

    4. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

      Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

      The field is being infiltrated by people who think that words like boffin are offensive because they are apparently gendered.

      That's a good reason to stay out of the field.

      1. TRT

        Re: Deter people from studying in the field?

        I went for a walk round the local park with a colleague a few years ago. He flatly refused to go into the bit of the park that was hedged and fenced off, as the sign on the gate clearly said "nature area", and that he might see something that would conflict with his religious obligations around modesty.

        He stayed out of THAT field.

  11. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    Icon alert!

    "“Words like ‘boffin’, often accompanied by a picture of a man working on their own in a lab, send a message...."

    We won't always have Paris, but perhaps a small reparation would be a new boffin icon. Gender ambiguous, naturally.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: Icon alert!

      "pictures of wild-eyed elderly men being run together with the word [boffin]"

      I picture Dr. Doofenshmirtz

      1. Snowy Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Icon alert!

        Is he full of beanz?

      2. Norman Nescio

        Re: Icon alert!

        "pictures of wild-eyed elderly men being run together with the word [boffin]"

        I picture Dr. Doofenshmirtz

        Oh, come on. The classic, if not seminal, image is C.A. Rotwang, from Metropolis. (Wild-eyed)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Icon alert!

          Wallace from Wallace and Grommit is the quintessential eccentric boffin with inventions to match ...

          1. that one in the corner Silver badge

            Re: Icon alert!

            Indeed; if we were discussing Mad Science then Rotwang fits the bill, but a proper Boffin will be reaching wildly for the mug of tea[1] whilst in his slippers.

            [1] which the long-suffering assistant nudges into his hand in the hopes of avoiding Another Incident: whilst it did lead to a breakthrough, the damage done to the wainscotting will never be fully repaired.

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Icon alert!

      We won't always have Paris, but perhaps a small reparation would be a new boffin icon. Gender ambiguous, naturally.

      Sadly, the Paris icon has disappeared much like it's former masthead motto.

  12. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    more than 10 times the number of respondents thought the term described a man compared with the number who thought it described a woman

    I wonder what response they'd get if they asked about the term "scientist" or "physicist".

  13. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

    Young boffin

    So they don't know what it means, and they think it's an insult.... Must have been tough growing up.

    1. Paul Kinsler

      Re: they don't know what it means, and they think it's an insult.

      Sometimes it is things like tone of voice, body language, and context that let you know whether something is an insult; in such cases the dictionary meaning of the word can be secondary or irrelevant. And words whose dictionary meaning is insulting can be used affectionately.

      Somewhat at a tangent, but not entirely irrelevant: I recall being present at a dispute where in one phrase a swear word was deliberately omitted, but with sufficient emphasis, so that the target not only knew what had been meant, but even insisted that the missing word was actually used.

  14. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    Out with the old word, in with the new

    So we switch from boffin to brainbox, egghead or whatever. The IOP can run another study and find that over 90% of the population think replacement word is heavily gendered too. The problem is not the word but people's perception. The place to start is to find the cause of people's perception. My first guesses would be Sheldon Cooper, Brian Cox and Spock. Even when writers decide to make a scientist female we get Susan Calvin, Bennett Halverson, and Temperance Brennan more often than Jane Foster, Jemma Simmons or even Dr Harleen Quinzel.

    1. FeepingCreature

      Re: Out with the old word, in with the new

      Sam Carter!

  15. Ididntbringacoat

    Usage

    I have heard, on occasion, the temporary sexual union of a male and female referred to as a "boff". Generally in the context of a quick adventure in whatever suitable (or not) location might be available.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: boff

      I once met an Aussie who his friends called "boff" or "boffo" ... but the reference was rather "bufo", as in "Bufo marinus", ... the now-superceeded scientific name for cane toads.

    2. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Usage

      Only ever heard that term in Babylon 5.

      Capt. Susan Ivanova : At least I should have just boffed him once.

      Dr. Stephen Franklin : 'Boffed'? Did you just say 'boffed'?

      1. Charles Bu

        Re: Usage

        I wonder how Frank Bough would have felt about all this.

        Guess we'll never know for sure.

        1. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

          Re: Usage

          Dunno but no doubt he'd be well up for it...

    3. Korev Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Usage

      > I have heard, on occasion, the temporary sexual union of a male and female referred to as a "boff".

      Not usually a "problem" for your boffin

      1. Sam_B.

        Re: Usage

        You see, that's the sort of comment that drives young people away from STEM subjects, not the risk of one day being referred to as a Boffin.

  16. Red Sceptic

    Stereotype at best

    When I worked at a provincial RG university in the UK, the work of university staff was universally headlined in the local rag as “University boffins [create/discover/{other verb}] …”.

    And at school, those who - whether by dint of natural aptitude, hard work or both - excelled at STEM subjects were universally dubbed as “boffs”.

    Neither usage seemed to be particularly gendered.

  17. TRT

    *cough*

    *cough* Yes. Quite.

  18. Primus Secundus Tertius

    Ask the dictionary

    The Oxford English Dictionary agrees that the origin of the word is not known. Its first citation with the meaning of 'scientist' is from The Times, 1945. It also alleges another meaning, which I have never met: 'elderly naval officer' dating from 1941.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Ask the dictionary

      Growing up in the post-WWII years the typical usage seems to have been anyone involved in the sort of R&D that won the war (excepting, of course BP & the like which we were never told about). As such is was a term of respect. The IoPs problem seems to be that it's neglected to polish its own image.

      1. PRR Silver badge

        Re: Ask the dictionary

        I never knew "boffin" in The States.

        The English/Australian author A. Bertram Chandler used "boffin" in his stories several times. ABC served in several merchant navies starting WWII, wrote a lot of SciFi 1950s-1980s.

        > ...typical usage seems to have been anyone involved in the sort of R&D that won the war...

        In ABC's tales, spaceship captain/commodore Grimes, or another Captain (once a woman) says "I'm no boffin..." or "The boffins tell me". Yes, it is a class society-- Grimes (like Chandler) rose from scurvy scum through naval ranks to Ship Captain. He knows just enough 'technical' to make dumb suggestions to his boffins (and advance the story line).

        I am sure the engineers, technicians, and other folks who keep the ship working have equally rude nicknames for ignorant Captains--- but they didn't write these stories. (Actually Grimes gets called names. Just before the mutiny.)

        ABC's worlds are mostly sexist AF. In most of his tales, women can only be Catering Officer (mess-hall attendant) or a quick roll in the hay. ABC's second wife may have pointed this out. He got more woke late in life. A ground-breaking novel set on an all-male planet (and interestingly the boffinry to make the biology work comes from the all-female planet next door).

        Aside from TheReg and ABC, I never see 'boffin'.

  19. fidodogbreath

    the IOP’s own monitoring of the term over the last 12 months has found it used for racing tipsters, political pollsters, dermatologists, astrologers and car designers, as well as physicists, biologists and chemists

    So, by their own admission, "boffin" is widely used in a non-gendered manner, to describe anyone with even a modicum of perceived expertise in pretty much anything. Yet their headline take-away is that it is gendered and (they hint) racist-classist and dissuades people from STEM.

    Ah, but they made us look.

  20. Blackjack Silver badge

    How about the term "Techie"?

    1. ravenviz Silver badge
  21. Notas Badoff
    Joke

    Old fart (Must be male, according to 'logic' ?)

    Thought I'd drop in this oldey, from El Reg comments, from 2010 (but I can't Google the original article? Hey, ElReg?!?)

    Arrests were made after an argument over stolen cake led to a fight among scientists studying sea birds on an Arctic island, in a muffin stuffing Baffin puffin boffin biffing cuffing.

    1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

      Re: Old fart (Must be male, according to 'logic' ?)

      Don't blame El Reg! "We've enhanced our search results!" Duckduckgo and Startpage both return nothing but recipes for "muffin stuffing Baffin puffin boffin biffing cuffing". Add the -recipes operator and get ... recipes. In fact, I couldn't find any way to not get recipes. Search is officially broken, unless of course you want recipes.

      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Old fart (Must be male, according to 'logic' ?)

        Missed the edit window, but I did find it.

        https://www.theregister.com/2010/08/06/comments_roundup/

        1. Notas Badoff

          Re: Old fart (Must be male, according to 'logic' ?)

          Yah, but that's the weekly summary of commentary delights. The *original* comment cannot be found by Google. Hmm, perhaps they have retroactively instituted "history off" against ElReg?

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  22. JamesMcP

    As a "merican, I thought it was explicitly an insult for quite a while. It sounds diminutive and dismissive. Even when I found out it was "egghead" or "braniac", well, I don't really find those terms to be used respectfully either.

    1. RPF

      Wonder if "snow-flake" is a gendered term?

      1. Korev Silver badge
        Joke

        > Wonder if "snow-flake" is a gendered term?

        How can a database be gendered?

        1. Ken Shabby
          Coat

          Cassandra?

    2. alain williams Silver badge

      Use of boffin, egghead, brainiac, ...

      Well we could stick with: researcher, scientist, technician, engineer, ...

      All perfectly good words, but by using other terms we make the writing more engaging and fun to read thus better communicating the topic. Writing is an art helped by a wide vocabulary.

      1. Sam_B.

        Re: Use of boffin, egghead, brainiac, ...

        Personally I think Boffin is a warmer word making scientists/technicians/researchers/engineers, one of ours rather than something more cold and clinical (even if that is part of their job).

    3. Sam_B.

      Egghead and Brainiac I would see as more commonly a bit rude but then I would generally regard them as more American terms.

      Boffin may be diminutive, but in the way we use diminutives for friends and loved ones: They may be a bit eccentric but they're our eccentrics and we recognise the great work they do.

      It may be a British/American thing.

  23. NapTime ForTruth

    Schoolyard Education, Yeah?

    I'm thinking - and just run with me on this - that if someone asks you to stop calling them names...maybe put your favorite nomenclature back in your pants and stop calling them names.

    Most of us learn this basic social decency in school, though the slower among us sometimes have to go through the old "spitting out your own broken teeth" cycle before the idea really takes hold. Falls under "your mileage may vary", I guess.

    Also worth noting that physicists design things like, I don't know...lasers, atomic weapons? Maybe stay on their good side.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Schoolyard Education, Yeah?

      In school you just learned to “own” any name you didn’t like. Instantly undermining it, effectively disabling the motivation and ending the problem.

      Those that whined about it only encouraged it.

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Schoolyard Education, Yeah?

      I'm thinking - and just run with me on this - that if someone asks you to stop calling them names...maybe put your favorite nomenclature back in your pants and stop calling them names.

      In this case it seems to be mainly well-meaning people demanding that names not be used about people who are actually quite happy with them.

  24. Snowy Silver badge
    Flame

    Educate

    People that Boffin is both respectful and gende neutral, but I guess it is easier to change it to somethings else than fix it. Wonder how long before the new word is also considered to be bad and in need of a change.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      Re: Educate

      It's no use. OK, if you are 65+ it may be respectful, etc, but not for younger people, and certainly not for people outside UK.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Respect! Respect!

    “‘Boffin’ gets used to describe literally anyone with the slightest technical expertise - the IOP’s own monitoring of the term over the last 12 months has found it used for racing tipsters, political pollsters, dermatologists, astrologers and car designers, as well as ...”

    Here is the nub, they are not being shown proper respect and being lumped in with Dermatologists.

    I think the IOP are with the smallish group of engineers who join anything professional sounding and pointedly add FRsomething to the end of all communications, and if they are German write letters bemoaning the difficulty of getting people to call them Herr Engineer when anybody with a PhD can get called Doctor, and why doesn't the govt pass some sort of law restricting the use of the word Engineer to properly qualified persons, and not any barbarian with a wrench in the pocket of his blue overalls.

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Respect! Respect!

      Because some of us barbarians with wrenches in our overalls are far more qualified than the highly educated designers with lots of letters after their names.

      As I've mentioned more than once in some of my rambling tales from robot manufacturing hell.

      But then we have to contend with HR coming up with the title of 'engineer' for people trained just to replace stuff until the device works.

      But back to the term 'boffin' ... nope never liked it... but then never liked being termed a 'geek' or a 'nerd' either... largely by 'jocks' who end up working under you because of their educational qualifications (or lack of them).

      But the true reason for people not choosing the life of a 'boffin' is not because of the name or the social stigma... its because its bloody hard work.

      If I do a personal profile for one of the employees, I can waffle all I like in assesing his/her abilities until it sort of fits in with what the boss wants to read.

      If I'm figuring out translating euclidian geometery into spherical geometery, then the solution is either right or wrong... theres no grey area to waffle into.. just like most technical applications

      A thread does not care if it can get into a race or a deadlock condition, you have to be able to program it to avoid getting in that position.

      This is why being a boffin is hard..... and nothing you can do will ever change that to make it 'appeal' to people not inclined to do it.

      Boris Dip.Comp(open)

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Respect! Respect!

        .....& all those who were engineers in UK, suddenly finding they cant be engineers in North America-land because of the lack of a degree.

        1. disgruntled yank

          Re: Respect! Respect!

          Some fellow in Oregon was put through the mill because he had identified himself as an engineer in communications (about traffic-light timing, I think), without having the proper piece of paper. But if you don't go signing off on building plans, most of the time you can call yourself an engineer without anyone objecting. I once held a job with the absurd title Technical Support Engineer.

      2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        Re: Respect! Respect!

        But do you like the respectful epithet "grease monkey"?

        1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

          Re: Respect! Respect!

          Some down-voters clearly have no sense of humour.

  26. Simon Harris

    Pipe

    When I hear the word boffin, my mental picture is usually of a chap smoking a pipe who saves the day in an old black and white war movie. It’s usually Barnes Wallis.

  27. md56

    Boff and Proud

    ..enoiugh said

  28. Charles Bu

    Nasty niff

    There was a young boffin called Tiff,

    Who folks viewed as decidedly stiff.

    She played by the book,

    And earned what she took,

    Unperturbed by the ignorant whiff.

    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Nasty niff

      Have one of these as well as an upvote ->

  29. Gurhurk

    Oh, the irony...

    On my phone, directly above this article: "EU mandated messaging platform love-in is easier said than done: Cambridge boffins"!

  30. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Nickname disliked, nickname adopted!

  31. Thought About IT

    Not just the popular press

    It's not just the popular press using the term "boffin", unless this organ considers itself in that category. The problem with using it is that it conjures up an image of people who are not normal "like us", and is dismissive of "them". This is not the ideal way to encourage youngsters to become scientists, nor to discourage the current anti-science phenomenon. Anti-vaxers and climate change deniers spring to mind.

  32. mpi Silver badge

    How to prevent young people from turning their back on studying and working in science, a checklist:

    - Pay good and fair wages to the people dedicating their lives to increasing our species scientific and technological capabilities. Yes, that includes research assistents, postgrads working to get their PhD, lab workers and undergrads working at research institutes.

    - Increase public funding of research institutes.

    - Make quality education available to everyone. Yes, that means funding it with public money.

    - Increase public funding of research projects. Yes, particle accelerators and supercomputers are expensive. They are also worth it.

    Yes, all the above points cost a lot of public money. But just for comparisons sake: Building the LHC at CERN cost 4.75 billion $ over a 10-year period (https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/#1891ccaa3948). I leave checking up how much each country spent on the 2008 bank bailout as an exercise to the reader.

    - Ditch the "publish-or-perish" system.

    - Make scientific results funded by public money available to the public.

    - Make scientists not waste countless hours on applying for grants.

    - Raise public awareness about the importance of science. No, "lets open some museum exhibits every now and then" is not enough. We live in an age where anti-scientific sentiment has become increasingly popular. Our society relies on scientific work to function, so our society should visibly support it.

    - Have scientists sit in comittees making decisions about topics like climate change, pandemic action plans, public healthcare, macroecononomics, and similar topics that have to be intensively studied to be fully understood, instead of having them as "advisors" that are ignored or lauded based on where the political wind blows on a given day, or as backdrop props for photo-ops.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

      Congratulations, you've just rediscovered scientific socialism.

      Will there be restrictions on fleeing for people who know what happens next?

      1. mpi Silver badge

        Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

        What does happen next?

        As far as I can tell from experience in countries which implement many of these points, like Finland, it seems to increase happiness and productivity of people working in science, bolsters scientific literacy in the wider population, makes the country a popular destination for people seeking good jobs in scientific fields, makes for impressive scores in international rankings, and mostly solves the economic problems that student debt causes.

        1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

          Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

          If you want a recent example of what destruction is caused by supplanting democracy with committees of scientists, look at Covid.

          Scientists did great work during that time, inventing vaccines and so forth.

          However the ones given political power did abysmally. There is documented evidence in America of expert scientists being silenced for disagreeing with the consensus - for example on vaccine safety. We now know that the conspiracy theorists (which included actual expert scientists) had a point on the vaccines not being as safe as we were told.

          In the UK we had scientists abusing their political power to push for a state of permanent lockdown. One which ( even if it was scientifically justified, which we now know it wasn't ), ignores the reality that the real world is a trade off - yes we need to not all die from Covid, but we also need to be able to run our economies so that we don't all starve to death.

          Scientists should be given voices - as advisors. As they are in the UK. They should not be given political power as though they have divine knowledge.

          ( My guess is that you didn't read most of this and will just write me off as a Covid denier, but this is written now so I might as well press submit... )

          1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

            We now know that the conspiracy theorists (which included actual expert scientists) had a point on the vaccines not being as safe as we were told.

            [Citation needed]

            1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

              Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

              You can do your own Googling but it's since come out that the worries about myocarditis weren't unfounded.

              You'll also remember that scientists told us that the lab leak theory was conspiracy theorist tinfoil hatted nonsense.

              The point of this is that scientists are fallible. Not that ( as I'm sure somebody will pretend that I've said ) that scientists are always wrong, or that Covid wasn't real, or that the vaccine and 5G causes whatever.

              1. LogicGate Silver badge

                Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                "You'll also remember that scientists told us that the lab leak theory was conspiracy theorist tinfoil hatted nonsense."

                more citations needed.. and please do not come with the Trump appointee in FBI.

                https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/heres-the-full-analysis-of-newly-uncovered-genetic-data-on-covids-origins/#

                As for lockdowns and other covid measures: Please stop sprouting disinformation.

                Masks, face-shields, lockdowns, vaccines: These were all measures that can and will aid reducing the fallout of a pandemic.

                However, they need to be applied properly, not in the deadly clown-show way in which BoJo killed thousands upon thousands of elderly in the UK.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                  "BoJo killed thousands upon thousands of elderly in the UK."

                  As did a lot of US democrat politicians. Andrew Cuomo and Gretchen Whitmer to name two.

                  I'm not sure arsetechnica is a reliable source. Occam's razor is works quite well here. City with US funded biolab that is doing gain of function on bat coronaviruses just somehow happens to be the epicentre of an outbreak of a virus that supposedly comes from a bat that can only be found some 500+ miles from the city.

                  Remember the people who said the virus did NOT come from the lab are the same people who said there was no evidence of human to human transmission.

                  1. LogicGate Silver badge

                    Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                    I notice that you conveniently forget mr bleach and deworming medicine...

                    ..and his whole cabal of grifters who decided to turn acceptance of covid measures into a political issue in the hope of staying in power.

                    1. Anonymous Coward
                      Anonymous Coward

                      Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                      Ah yes, all the dem grifters in early 2020 saying 'nothing to worry about, come to chinatown, Trump is being a racist' followed by 'Trump didn't protect us' while they dine out without masks or social distancing while telling you to stay home while your job evaporates.

                2. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

                  Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                  Obviously you didn't read my post.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells> but it's since come out that the worries about myocarditis weren't unfounded.

                More likely to suffer myocarditis from getting Covid.

                Look it up.

                Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells>You'll also remember that scientists told us that the lab leak theory was conspiracy theorist tinfoil hatted nonsense.

                The tinfoil hat part was the "bioengineered weapon" part of that story. Not that a source could be a lab. (See: UK foot & mouth outbreak for an example.)

                Nice gaslighting.

                1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge
                  Facepalm

                  Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                  If you have to lie to defend your position, you should reconsider why you are holding your position.

                  We were told definitively that the Covid lab had nothing to do with Covid. That the origin was the wet markets nearby.

                  It is now widely accepted that the lab is the probable origin as they were likely doing "gain of function" research ( while completely irrelevant, that sounds suspiciously like an engineered bioweapon to me...).

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Facepalm

                    Re: How to prevent young people from turning their back on stud...

                    Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells> "gain of function" research ( while completely irrelevant, that sounds suspiciously like an engineered bioweapon to me

                    Did you conclude that by "doing your own research"?

                    Read around the subject a bit more. The DoE report was published with a "low level of confidence".

                    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/energy-department-low-confidence-covid-lab-leak-1234687031/

  33. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    WTF?

    Complete and utter bulshit survey

    ... and that's me being restrained. The only people I've heard using the term in a derogatory manner are the jealous wannabes.

    I've been referred to as a boffin only a handful of times - as a mark of respect. Each time it set me up for the rest of the day.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Complete and utter bulshit survey

      I have a friend with two professorships and she likes to think of herself as a Princess Boffin.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Back to...

    ...Eggheads it is then.

  35. Ken G Silver badge
    Windows

    Ireland

    She (Rachel Youngman) said in UK and Ireland, the formal study of physics struggles to attract girls, those from disadvantaged backgrounds, people of Black Caribbean descent, people with disabilities, and LGBT+ young people into the subject.

    It seems minor but why specify "people of Black Caribbean descent" when speaking of difficulties attracting students not just in the UK but "and Ireland"?

    There are plenty of young black Irish people who might usefully be engaged with but most are of African descent whose families moved to Ireland more recently (when it became a place to go to, rather than one to get away from) and very few of Carribean origin.

  36. Ken G Silver badge
    Boffin

    Let's save time

    Here's prior art from 10 years ago; Do scientists mind being called boffins?

    1. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: Let's save time

      To answer a question from the end of that piece "Why not just refer to scientists as exactly that? Scientists.":

      Bluntly, not all scientists - purely as "people who do science" - are boffins. As in all fields[1], there is a range of abilities, even if the curve is offset from the wider population. Your boffins are the best of the best.

      [1] I'm still allowed to use that derogatory term here, yes?

      1. Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells Silver badge

        Re: Let's save time

        I've always understood boffins to include engineers as well as scientists. The boffins that built the bouncing bomb weren't scientists but engineers.

        1. blackcat Silver badge

          Re: Let's save time

          We seem to call anyone who can hold a screwdriver the right way around an engineer these days.

          1. LogicGate Silver badge

            Re: Let's save time

            The trick is to hold it at the thin shaft and use the heavy rubbery end to wack away at whatever is stuck.

            Oh.. and calipers have a great secondary use as adjustable wrenches!

            ..got to go.. I am needed in the workshop again.

            1. Potty Professor
              Facepalm

              Misuse of precision tools.

              I once happened to visit a street market, and was drawn to a stall offering various tools etc.. As the wind began to blow, the awning started to flap and the support struts worked slightly loose. The stallholder opened a spectacle case and took out a (brand new) 1" micrometer, with which he started to tighten the wingnuts on the awning. When he had finished, he returned the mike to its case and replaced it on his display. I said to him "I hope you are not going to sell that mike now that you've buggered it". He scowled at me and replied "Why not? no-one will notice".

  37. Antony Shepherd

    Old-Fashioned

    "Boffin" always strikes me as one of those very old-fashioned terms, and brings up mental images of Michael Redgrave bouncing balls off the birdbath with some bungee, or a character from a Heath Robinson cartoon with big tufts of hair either side of a bald dome, wearing several pairs of glasses at once, shirt collar sticking out at unkempt angles and shirt buttons in danger of bursting off as they create a strange device using lots of knotted pieces of string.

    It comes across as old-fashioned, very silly and a bit derogatory. Not really a word that belongs in today's lexicon.

  38. Timfy67

    Surely the "boffin" is female?

    I live on Inishboffin and that translates from the Gaelic Inis Bó Finne meaning 'Island of the White Cow'

  39. DrBobK
    Headmaster

    I'm a professor in a science department at an old university with old buildings (and some new). I am a man with very long hair and a beard. I love being called a boffin, but my female colleagues are as boffiny as me and therefore deserve to be referred to as boffins too.

    1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

      " I am a man with very long hair and a beard. I love being called a boffin"

      I guess that's why others may not enjoy being called that?

      (And I used to look just like you, although I had to do some trimming now for my passport photo.)

  40. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    I rather like being called a boffin, but the only time it has happened regularly is in British Forces (BFBS) radio interviews.

  41. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    The Tories don't need no experts. So "boffins" is the preferred derogatory term.

  42. Arbuthnot the Magnificent

    I AM a boffin

    Physicist here, I demand to retain my boffin status. Although of the male persuasion myself, I have many female colleagues who are also indisputably boffins.

  43. Fading
    Facepalm

    More survey based nonsense......

    I fail to see why the opinions of 2514 individuals should decide on the useage of any words in any language. I also fail to see why these nonsense pieces ever see the light of day. Mayhap the Institute of Physics should concern itself with funding useful research instead of pop-culture-war surveys.

    1. Paul Kinsler

      Re: Mayhap the IoP should concern itself with funding useful research ...

      The IoP is a membership organization, not a research council.

      1. Fading

        Re: Mayhap the IoP should concern itself with funding useful research ...

        So funding this survey is a good use of membership fees?

        1. Paul Kinsler

          Re: So funding this survey is a good use of membership fees?

          Well, FWIW, this particular member is a bit ambivalent about the whole thing, but I'm not going to get in a froth about it.

          Even if I personally have no objection, if underrepresented groups really /are/ put off by the whole "boffin" thing, maybe it is best avoided.

  44. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Specious arguments are great for wasting time

    And what a waste of time this suggestion is! Changing terms, pronouns, etc. are easy to suggst but they don't change anything.

    If there is a problem with getting your girls in science then look at the society they grow up in, and work on providing role models or changing their perceptions of role models. Make boffin acceptable by making it accessible and even desirable, in the aspirational sense. There are now plenty of excellent female scientists in different fields who probably be happy if you call them boffins. But most importantly, it's obvious that they are successful scientists without sacrificing any of their feminity; a culturally specific minefield all of its own.

    Look at societies which value science, such as the fomer Soviet Union, India and elsewhere in Asia and learn from how they approach the subject.

    1. Potty Professor
      Boffin

      Re: Specious arguments are great for wasting time

      Both of my girls are in the sciences, one is an Archaeologist and the other is a partner in an Internet Service Provider.

  45. Sam_B.

    The ridiculous thing here is that they should be celebrating the use of the ungendered term Boffin, I'm quite sure the pilots soldiers etc didn't check the gender mix in the labs when they referred to the Boffins producing new equipment.

    If the IOP want to improve things they should just start using the term more often alongside pictures of female Boffins.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a load of rubbish. But it did make people talk about the IOP, which might have been the point? I ditched the IOP membership in favour of a different technical institution as it was a better fit in my line of work.

    Worrying about labels and naming conventions being offensive or not is the preserve of the alphabet brigade. Let's not go there. I absolutely am a nerd, and a boffin, and quite proud of it.

    PS one of my best mates is of that persuasion and passionately hates the insistence on labelling. He openly uses the term alphabet people because of how stupid the whole labelling nonsense has become.

    I personally prefer the term "expert", because I will absolutely seek advice and critique from other boffins and nerds in order to get the best possible result.

  47. anderlan

    It is a rare British idiom indeed that has completely defied the rise of Commonwealth youtubers.

    I *only* know what a boffin is because I started reading El Reg in the noughties. And still only vaguely. Not surprised at all that it's used for experts in any and every field.

  48. Long John Silver
    Pirate

    Those who obsess over "gender" get themselves into a pickle

    English has deep Latinate roots: some direct, others via Norman French. Present day French and other European languages more steadfast than English to Latin grammar require the proficient user to memorise gender designations for inanimate objects. We, the more pragmatic English, long ago ditched irrelevant notions, i.e. devoid of information content, of grammatical gender: we (the educated among us) apply them solely to those biological entities for which biological sex has meaning and is distinguishable among individuals (e.g. to cats, but not to amoebae).

    Elements of the English-speaking world (particularly that using American patois) are tying themselves in knots over bizarre application of a generalised 'gender' concept not founded on biological observation and seemingly of the 'make it up as you go along' variety. One wonders whether the Académie Française is puzzling over extensions to "le" and "la".

    I do wonder whether the ground for present day 'gender Babel' inadvertently was prepared by a trend dating back several decades of ignorant people dropping the term 'sex' in favour of 'gender' because they thought the former somehow crude; an analogy to American matrons with pretension to 'sensibility' referring to the "white meat" of a turkey instead of to "breast". Nowadays, all kinds of officialdom, sadly including the NHS, ask people to state their 'gender', not their sex. As in other respects, clarity of thought is being sacificed in the name of a goofy notion of 'diversity'.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Those who obsess over "gender" get themselves into a pickle

      I'm trying to think as to whether English really does have "deep Latinate" roots. We certainly have a lot of Latin words but very little truly Latinate grammar. What we have is a Germanic language (Anglo-Saxon with some lovely Scandinavian simplifications) with many similar constructs, but huge differences in the detail.

      As for French, it's another bastard language, being the language of the Francs, a Germanic group, with even more Latinate influence than English. You see this particularly in comparison with the significantly more Latinate, but also newer, Italian and Spanish. Both English and French contain lots of archaic terms and constructs due their long histories as official written languages of nation states, with Henry V of England (because there was also, of course, a French one) the first English king to swear his oath of allegiance in English, Honi soit qui mal y pense, indeed.

      The good old Académie Française does indeed get to ponder over gendering, though some of the changes made do at least have theoretical underpinnings from French feminism, Cixous, et al. Somewhat typically French, it's important that the problem is discovered, analysed and resolved in theory. The real world can wait!

      German is also getting a bashing from the time wasters with discussions as to whether students should be der Student / die Studentin or (double gerund) die Studierende and whether the previously theoretically masculine-only plural should replace by the "gender star" (you can't make this shit up) so that die Studenten gets to become die Student*innen, and whether this monster should be aspirated or not. If it's not, it's the same as the feminine-only plural. This is considered somehow more inclusive for the generic plural than the masculine-only one!

      Anyway, genders in language only loosely align with animal sexes, which only adds to the confusion and misapplcation. But also, no doubt, provides plenty of reasons for yet more "research projects".

      My head hurts, where's the Aspirin™ icon? I'll have a pint instead, here's yours.

  49. David1

    I am proud to have been called a boffin by people I respect - RAF personnel operating the 'plane.

  50. jollyboyspecial

    Irony much?

    The headline of the story directly above this one on your front page reads "EU mandated messaging platform love-in is easier said than done: Cambridge boffins"

    Ho hum

  51. Bbuckley

    Here we go again. Low-IQ people are 'triggered' by the Boffins. In actual fact, 'gendered' is a gendered term. A Tautology, if you like.

  52. LateAgain

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