Do scientists mind being called boffins?

There's a show on the BBC called "Some People with Jokes". The most recent episode was titled "Some Boffins With Jokes". Several people I know were in it. I honestly can't remember if I was invited to be on it. I've been approached by a number of TV shows before now, but once I turn up at the audition and they hear how I speak, I'm inevitably told the show is "going in another direction", that direction presumably being "away from me".

But the show's use of the term "boffin" has irked many in the science community. It stirs up stronger feelings than you might expect, for various reasons.

Exactly what is meant by the word "boffin" varies considerably between individuals. The main online sources refer to its second world war use, where boffins were the scientists and technicians working behind the scenes to help win the war by breaking codes and the like. It was apparently an affectionate term, signifying appreciation, but also a patronising one, suggesting these people are different, perhaps inferior because of their weird interests and lack of social abilities?

Things have changed a lot since then. But check out the tagline for Some Boffins with Jokes.

Do boffins find the same things funny as us regular citizens?

Not necessarily an insult, but clearly suggests boffins are not regular people. So how do scientists and science enthusiasts actually feel about the term these days? It used to be you had to conduct an extensive survey to get information like this. Nowadays though, all it takes is a single tweet. So, I tweeted all my science-loving followers and asked them what they felt about the word "boffin". The responses I got were varied but seemed to fall into three general categories.

The positive

Surprisingly, some responses expressed a positive opinion of the term boffin.

TFK @TracieFK

great word like geek and nerd. Better than thick!

Roger Adams @hammerfeather

Reclaim it! Badge of honour. I tell my students they're boffins in a proud way.=

Jonathan ‏@JonathanTondu

having left the lab in 1998 being called a boffin these days is a compliment

Chris Emerson @chris_emerson

Depends what you aspire to I suppose – I've always taken it as a compliment

Dave Steele @hullodave

Doesn't really bother me. As much of an insult as nerd or geek which seem to have been appropriated with ease and pride

Jo Brodie @JoBrodie

I like it. Makes me smile, have reclaimed it ;)

Interestingly, nearly all of the positive ones come with some sort of caveat. Comparisons with "nerd" and "geek" are common.. Nerds and geeks are currently "cool", or at least acceptable in the mainstream, and some believe the same is true of boffin by proxy. But it's often referred to as being "reclaimed", suggesting that if it isn't now, it definitely was a derogatory term. And "reclaiming" it signifies an active effort by the individual to interpret and use it positively. Even those who don't refer to it being reclaimed generally acknowledge that it can often be used as an insult. And there's a certain "could be worse" vibe to some positive interpretations.

Overall, it seems like some people do think boffin is a positive term, but this takes some effort.

The media

A number of responses emphasised how the term is more often used in a derogatory way by mainstream media. We've already got the aforementioned BBC show, but much of the ire was directed elsewhere.

Dave Hone @Dave_Hone

I don't like it generally and it's too often used in a negative way. Tends to be in a "now look what they've done" context

Gemma Hallam @badhedgehog

It is stupid tabloid-speak and I hate it

Jaymz Wildz @szamar_madar

I thought the only people who actually referred to scientists as 'boffins' were Sun journalists...

Louise Walker @thinkscientific

I agree. 'Boffin' tends to be used by tabloids doing bad science reporting. I think it's a patronising expression

Simon Wadsworth @sc_wadsy

Also must have a white coat to be a true boffin, as shown in attached Times Archive photo. pic.twitter.com/TM7EYLTpm9

Whether this is a fair accusation or not, many associate the word boffin with certain elements of the mainstream media, where it is used as a convenient shorthand to identify and dismiss the efforts of those scientists and their crazy ideas and schemes.

Oftentimes, it seems the media (or particularly the tabloids) refer to someone as a boffin in the same way they'd refer to a woman as being a "leggy beauty"; it's a way of pointing out an impressive property of someone while simultaneously making it acceptable for readers to judge them as inferior.

I could of course be wrong about this. You could say the fact that I admit that proves that I'm not a journalist myself. I wouldn't say that though, that's unfair and offensive.

The Stereotyping

The most common complaint was that boffin encouraged unfair stereotyping of scientists:

Stephen ‏@SciSteve

I think it perpetuates the stereotypical image of a wild-haired scientific lunatic. Makes science seem inaccessible to anyone but

Joe Wright ‏@Bio_Joe

I think the boffin image has a lot to do with public misunderstanding of science & scientists

Rosie Campbell ‏@RosieCampbell

often comes across as a backhanded compliment like 'yeah you're clever, but we wouldn't really want to be like you'

Katie Griffiths ‏@Katielase

I have been informed recently that I'm surprisingly personable for a boffin. Winning at human interaction, clearly

Dr Suzie Sheehy ‏@suziesheehy

it brings to mind ageing white male university professors... about the opposite of me!!

Chris North ‏@chrisenorth

I don't think it's used to mock, though it is used to stereotype. Normally exposes the ignorance of the user.

Douglas ‏@BioLabMan

A sort of ClipArt caricature of a scientist springs to mind with the word, 'Boffin'

Donald Sinclair ‏@Donaldosaurus

Has connotations of 'making it up as they go along, secluded eccentrics detached from reality'. Not a fan

The most common complaint was, in this instance at least, that boffin brings to mind an image of a stereotypical scientist, generally an ageing white male with unruly hair, possibly a moustache, who is probably straight but generally quite asexual as, despite his clearly formidable intellect when it comes to his profession, he seems to be generally clueless in any context where he has to interact with a fellow human being outside of his work, and as a result should be pitied, rather than awed or feared, by the general public. This description actually fits only a very small number of actual scientists.

That's an alarming amount of information to convey in two syllables though, so it's always important to consider that you could be reading too much into the word, perhaps based on pre-existing neuroses.

Conclusion

The results of my laughably basic survey strongly suggest that, overall, people in the science community resent being referred to as boffins as it encourages unfair stereotyping, something many of us are actively combating. Even those who don't mind the term seem to have to work to spin it in a positive way, and this isn't helped by the media using it as a dismissive term. To what extent this is a fair assessment and not the result of over-analysis and irritation by the people on the receiving end of the term the most is hard to say.

Someone reading this may think it's an issue that's being blown way out of proportion, and it probably looks that way (see attached cartoon). Granted, there are groups in society who suffer far worse insults with zero ambiguity as to their negative intent, so why make such a fuss out of something which is relatively quite innocuous?

Because it's annoying, and it's unnecessary. If you catch someone keying your car, you don't just let him carry on because someone points out he's not setting fire to it. Why not just refer to scientists as exactly that? Scientists. It's a totally neutral term. Those who have already formed negative stereotypes about scientists are still free to employ them. But those who haven't yet may just continue reading/watching/listening without forming derogatory impressions in advance. Who knows, maybe they'll find something that fascinates them?

We live in hope.

If you want to take part in one of Dean's totally irrelevant surveys like this one, follow him on Twitter, @garwboy.

Dean Burnett is not a boffin, neither is Dave Steele. They're not boffin's together on their podcast Dean and Dave's Science Webnoise.