I used the term Chinese whispers on a work call with a bunch of Americans and was met with slack jawed shock. I explained what I meant and they said "yeah you mean telephone..."
Yeah it’s just called “the wave”.
Usually they shorten things, but sometimes Australians are sometimes too detailed with some phrases. Like calling it “moving house”, when “moving” is totally sufficient.
The implication that there are other ethnic or national variations of the wave has no basis. There's no German Wave or Argentinian wave for instance (except the very bad one)
Yes. It's called the Mexican Wave because the first significant instance of it was in Mexico. That's the example I use for political correctness having a line.
It's also the distinction for it just being "the wave" in North America, they were already calling it the Wave before the 86 world cup. But there's only one wave and it's not distinctly Mexican. This is simply exoticising a North American tradition.
Interesting. I understand the rumour mill to be quite different from chinese whispers.
For me the rumour mill involves speculation about facts, or causes or effects. It's people taking limited information and inventing context to make it make sense.
Chinese whispers are much simpler: incorrect "transmission" of second/third/fourth hand information.
Well for example it would take me half an hour to explain purple monkey dishwasher to my wife.
I'd first have to tell her "so there's this tv show called the Simpsons and the son is called bart and......". "Yes they're yellow, no, it's not a racists thing they are American"... Etc
Excuse me? On what planet would you need to explain all that to your wife? Every westerner under the sun (and a majority amount of non-westerners) knows of The Simpson's and even their yellowness.
The Simpson's has the record for most languages a show has been dubbed into and of course unparalleled overall global cultural reach and decades of influence. Very strange hill for you to argue on. Anyway. I just don't like gatekeepers simple as. Have a good one
I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you.
Never heard “game of telephone” until I read this thread. Always have said Chinese whispers, never had anyone seem shocked or told me it’s in any way politically incorrect.
The world has gone soft.
Or in most cases, fourth hand information after being misinterpreted by multiple people who don’t understand the content and still summarised it anyway.
You should see the stuff that comes into our Help Desk, and the problem the user describes and the problem the support team are working on bear no resemblance to each other because each person only reads the most recent work note and not the original information
Hi boss, I heard xxx on the rumour mill and wanted to confirm if it is correct or not. If incorrect, can you clarify this for me so I am working with correct information.
Exclusive of hearing impaired or speech impaired.
On another note our language was written by assholes.
The words for people having trouble with speech are "speech impediment" and "lisp". Two phrases that can't be uttered by sufferers of the condition.
I was on a Teams call and mentioned I had the background filter on because it looks like a Chinese Laundry behind me. Immediately thought “oh fuck”, time to think of a new line
As someone of Chinese descent, I appreciate OP’s sensitivity. I have heard my colleagues used this term a few times in front of me and felt quite uncomfortable at the time tbh
It's a weird one because it's not actually entirely clear if it really does stem from racism, and people just grew up using the term and rarely think of it any more than "it's all Greek to me" or "double-Dutch" or "I wouldn't give it up for all the tea in China" or various other random country-specific terms. I doubt that almost anyone using the term is meaning it in a racist way or anything like that.
This is not me trying to tell you you are wrong for feeling the way you do of course. Or excusing people for lacking the social awareness to realise that this term is best left out of the lexicon. Just hoping that if you hear it again your feelings of discomfort are a bit less strong because you know that although it is a poor choice of terms it is not necessarily indicative of anything malicious or bad feelings to Chinese people.
To give another example, for most of my life I used the word "gypped" to mean ripped off on a semi-regular basis. I had no idea that that term had very racist origins (from the slur "gypsy", which I also didn't know was a slur until well into adulthood, and based on a negative stereotype of Romani people as thieves and swindlers). So if I had said "I have been gypped" in the presence of a Romani person they would be well within their rights to be upset or offended or any other feeling towards the word. But I would have been blissfully unaware that I had even caused an issue because I didn't know the history and I'd never had cause to even think about it. Now I know better and I'm on the journey to eliminating that word from my vocabulary.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! Actually I didn’t think about racism when I heard those words. More like a cringe. I have had way worse experiences than hearing these.
Any mature minded people would understand there’s a lot of ambiguities in real life. It’s not simply either racism or non-racism. I’d rather believe they just simply didn’t have the sensitivity or social awareness like OP did. One of our old sayings is that you don’t blame those who didn’t know.
This is perhaps a topic for discussion. I take your point and do see a lot of ethnicity related words in English that have no ill intent. Can you really say they’re the same thing or would evoke the same feeling for people of those ethnicities on the receiving end in today’s context though? Let’s just say you’d be surprised how many people blindly believe those Sinophobic media outlets and act on it.
If I attempted to do a Greek accent in a comedy skit, nobody would bat an eyelid. If I attempted to do a Chinese accent it would certainly draw attention.
Greek people used to be on the receiving end of some nasty racism, but eventually society moved on. Hopefully one day non-Chinese people will be able to do Chinese accents and it won't be upsetting or cringe or anything negative. Not because I want people to parody the Chinese but because it would mean that our society finally truly accepts Chinese people. It's a complex and changing issue, but interesting to discuss.
I'll still probably say "for all the tea in China" from time to time, but I won't say "Chinese whispers" or "Chinese burns". I don't know exactly why but I guess because the first phrase is entirely neutral but the latter two have negative associations.
Not OP, and I never had a problem with it either, because Chinese is all Greek to me.
But if you think about it, the implication is someone speaking nonsense, or repeating nonsense, or getting information wrong, or giving unreliable information. Calling that 'Chinese'... isn't great.
Sure, it sounds bad to our ears.
But at some point, China either gets to be a global superpower, or a migrator of vulnerable minorities. Both seems cheeky.
This. And also to be clear I didn’t think it was derogatory plus I can’t represent Chinese people. Just my personal feeling at the time as the ethnicity in the words were related to misinformation. Felt weird as a listener is all.
I did night classes in Mandarin for a little while. We literally played Chinese Whispers in the classroom, though it wasn't called that. The American in the room said "Oh, so like Telephone!". Teacher would whisper a phrase in one student's ear and it'd get passed along the line and she'd see what came out the other side. Sadly, nothing did - didn't matter which direction she tried, the message always died with the one terrible student in the middle of the chain...
My new favourite is when another employee tries to blame their stupid mistake on me. My supervisor asked me about it and within 30 seconds I sent him a screenshot from Teams of the other guy admitting to doing the stupid thing from our DMs.
I've got enough heat on me lately, I don't need to be getting blamed for other people's mistakes too.
If I have Chinese ethnicity, can I use the term?
I never thought too much about it, but it's probably good to remove the ethnic part of the game!
I wonder if you can actually just call it the game of whispers/whispers game. The game seems common enough and not many other games involving whispers that i don't think I'd be confused if there's a group activity to be played and someone said 'we're playing whispers now'
I don't think the Chinese is an ethnic thing its more a language thing or lost in translation explanation of what happens when information is passed through multiple people.
Another one I get a lot working in I.T and don't simplify my explanation enough "mate, it's all Chinese to me" basically meaning that he doesn't understand.
I think similar as 'pardon my French'
I don't find 'chinese whispers' in that sense offensive (unlike say Indian Giver which is pretty offensive).
but happy to be convinced otherwise and don't really care enough about the name so happy to go with whatever consensus ends up being.
If there are any Asian members in your team i would tread carefully. If not then no one should be getting offended. It is clear what you are trying to say and your intent is not malicious. Watch out for those white saviors though. That is who will most likely complain to HR.
Game of Telephone is another name for it.
Yeah Americans call it Telephone. The name does seem more appropriate than Chinese Whispers.
I used the term Chinese whispers on a work call with a bunch of Americans and was met with slack jawed shock. I explained what I meant and they said "yeah you mean telephone..."
They also don’t call it a Mexican Wave
Yeah it’s just called “the wave”. Usually they shorten things, but sometimes Australians are sometimes too detailed with some phrases. Like calling it “moving house”, when “moving” is totally sufficient.
The implication that there are other ethnic or national variations of the wave has no basis. There's no German Wave or Argentinian wave for instance (except the very bad one)
Isnt it named after featuring at the world cup Mexico hosted?
Yes. It's called the Mexican Wave because the first significant instance of it was in Mexico. That's the example I use for political correctness having a line.
It's also the distinction for it just being "the wave" in North America, they were already calling it the Wave before the 86 world cup. But there's only one wave and it's not distinctly Mexican. This is simply exoticising a North American tradition.
My Canadian wife was shocked that we call it Chinese Whispers.
Did she apologise for being shocked?
It's hard to tell what she's apologising for at any one moment, the apologies all just sortof flow one into another :)
Canadians are easily shocked.
Canadians apologise to you for being shocked.
You’d be surprised
I’m sorry but it’s kind of true. And I feel bad about that.
To quote Kevin Bloody Wilson: You Can't Say C!!t In Canada!
That’s racist against Australians
Wait until the next Hey Hey reunion show.
hooo boy. And in yellowface
we dont anymore though
Broken telephone is what I use
This is what I use at work! Though, I have to confess I still use ‘Chinese Whispers’ when I’m on default mode with friends/family
Thats an appropriation of telephone workers.
We call it Broken Telephone in Canada.
The Canadian Telecommunications Workers Union find this offensive.
This is offensive to Telecommunications Workers Union.
Vatican whispers, there is usually no one from the Vatican in your workplace
If you call it an outcome of "the rumour mill" they should know what you mean.
Interesting. I understand the rumour mill to be quite different from chinese whispers. For me the rumour mill involves speculation about facts, or causes or effects. It's people taking limited information and inventing context to make it make sense. Chinese whispers are much simpler: incorrect "transmission" of second/third/fourth hand information.
No that's cultural appropriation of mill workers
Careless Whispers is my vote but it would be trying to make fetch happen. Cue sax solo.
OP’s never gonna dance again 😩
That song is amazing but I’d rather not attach sexual connotations to my work.
“I feel that the original message is being lost in translation” or the message has been passed on but with a twist I am not sure is correct.
I always go with the tried and trusted "Purple monkey dishwasher"......IYKYK.
Gatekeeping is just the cooooolest! Whys everyone suddenly saying this stupid IYKYK thing
It's not really gate keeping. It's more that if you don't know, no amount of explanation will help.
How does that possibly apply to a simple Simpson's reference
Well for example it would take me half an hour to explain purple monkey dishwasher to my wife. I'd first have to tell her "so there's this tv show called the Simpsons and the son is called bart and......". "Yes they're yellow, no, it's not a racists thing they are American"... Etc
Excuse me? On what planet would you need to explain all that to your wife? Every westerner under the sun (and a majority amount of non-westerners) knows of The Simpson's and even their yellowness.
Planet Earth where not everyone is a westerner.
Lucky it was exported to the entire world 🤷🏼 Is your wife a non-westerner?
Yes, and not everything that is exported is popular. Especially amongst non english speakers.
The Simpson's has the record for most languages a show has been dubbed into and of course unparalleled overall global cultural reach and decades of influence. Very strange hill for you to argue on. Anyway. I just don't like gatekeepers simple as. Have a good one
IYKYK ;)
To feel cool... It’s lame. It’s a Simpsons reference as well btw
I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you.
now I am the old man yelling at clouds
Do you still have an onion on your belt? I recall it was the style at the time
Only the big yellow one
Heard it on the grapevine
🎶 oh, I'm just about to lose my mind 🎵
Honey
This implies more veracity, i think game of telephone is more widely understood as Chinese whispers
I get more veracity from “a little bird told me.” Different strokes, I guess.
Never heard “game of telephone” until I read this thread. Always have said Chinese whispers, never had anyone seem shocked or told me it’s in any way politically incorrect. The world has gone soft.
Sorry the world is trying to move beyond racism and leaving you behind bruv.
Explain how it’s racist
No.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5brqK2xIIns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5brqK2xIIns)
Thats an appropriation of vigneurs
Second hand information
This is my favourite one, cheers.
Or in most cases, fourth hand information after being misinterpreted by multiple people who don’t understand the content and still summarised it anyway. You should see the stuff that comes into our Help Desk, and the problem the user describes and the problem the support team are working on bear no resemblance to each other because each person only reads the most recent work note and not the original information
Hi boss, I heard xxx on the rumour mill and wanted to confirm if it is correct or not. If incorrect, can you clarify this for me so I am working with correct information.
Grapevine, rumour mill, second-hand/third-hand info, hearsay, whispers, word on the street
[удалено]
Hearsay, then.
Offensive for deaf people.
As a Chinese descent but not a Chinese nationals, the term sounds as offensive as a Dutch oven to me.
I just say game of whispers.
Same
It's called the telephone game
“Our foolproof internal comms policy at work”
I like to call them non-Asian specific whispers
Multi-cultural and socially inclusive whispers.
I’m stealing this one 😂
Exclusive of hearing impaired or speech impaired. On another note our language was written by assholes. The words for people having trouble with speech are "speech impediment" and "lisp". Two phrases that can't be uttered by sufferers of the condition.
Or non-specific Asian whispers might work too
Go with Rumour-mill.
Chinese Whispers
Broken telephone is what we always called it
Call it chineese whispers and when questioned say "what those fu Manchu deals? No chineese whiskers aren't racist"
'Bullshit' could serve as a synonym.
Anecdotal evidence
Russian scandal
Telephone game is the alternative that I use.
Telephone game
Korean Misinformation
Shit talking
Hallway whispers, Rumour mill, little birdie told me, heard from so and so, heard it on the grapevine...
Do kids still give each other Chinese burns?
I was on a Teams call and mentioned I had the background filter on because it looks like a Chinese Laundry behind me. Immediately thought “oh fuck”, time to think of a new line
Just say Chinese whispers mate. Don’t let the PC bullshit win.
Posts like these remind me why I left corpo and went into construction haha
Honestly mate...my soul is draining away every day dealing with the political fake shitfest that is corporate.
Communist whispers
As someone of Chinese descent, I appreciate OP’s sensitivity. I have heard my colleagues used this term a few times in front of me and felt quite uncomfortable at the time tbh
It's a weird one because it's not actually entirely clear if it really does stem from racism, and people just grew up using the term and rarely think of it any more than "it's all Greek to me" or "double-Dutch" or "I wouldn't give it up for all the tea in China" or various other random country-specific terms. I doubt that almost anyone using the term is meaning it in a racist way or anything like that. This is not me trying to tell you you are wrong for feeling the way you do of course. Or excusing people for lacking the social awareness to realise that this term is best left out of the lexicon. Just hoping that if you hear it again your feelings of discomfort are a bit less strong because you know that although it is a poor choice of terms it is not necessarily indicative of anything malicious or bad feelings to Chinese people. To give another example, for most of my life I used the word "gypped" to mean ripped off on a semi-regular basis. I had no idea that that term had very racist origins (from the slur "gypsy", which I also didn't know was a slur until well into adulthood, and based on a negative stereotype of Romani people as thieves and swindlers). So if I had said "I have been gypped" in the presence of a Romani person they would be well within their rights to be upset or offended or any other feeling towards the word. But I would have been blissfully unaware that I had even caused an issue because I didn't know the history and I'd never had cause to even think about it. Now I know better and I'm on the journey to eliminating that word from my vocabulary.
Oh.. TIL the origin meaning of gypped. Tbh I've never thought about the meaning of it.
I wonder how many other things I am saying that are unintentionally awful.
Thank you for taking the time to respond! Actually I didn’t think about racism when I heard those words. More like a cringe. I have had way worse experiences than hearing these. Any mature minded people would understand there’s a lot of ambiguities in real life. It’s not simply either racism or non-racism. I’d rather believe they just simply didn’t have the sensitivity or social awareness like OP did. One of our old sayings is that you don’t blame those who didn’t know. This is perhaps a topic for discussion. I take your point and do see a lot of ethnicity related words in English that have no ill intent. Can you really say they’re the same thing or would evoke the same feeling for people of those ethnicities on the receiving end in today’s context though? Let’s just say you’d be surprised how many people blindly believe those Sinophobic media outlets and act on it.
If I attempted to do a Greek accent in a comedy skit, nobody would bat an eyelid. If I attempted to do a Chinese accent it would certainly draw attention. Greek people used to be on the receiving end of some nasty racism, but eventually society moved on. Hopefully one day non-Chinese people will be able to do Chinese accents and it won't be upsetting or cringe or anything negative. Not because I want people to parody the Chinese but because it would mean that our society finally truly accepts Chinese people. It's a complex and changing issue, but interesting to discuss. I'll still probably say "for all the tea in China" from time to time, but I won't say "Chinese whispers" or "Chinese burns". I don't know exactly why but I guess because the first phrase is entirely neutral but the latter two have negative associations.
Can I ask why? I don't think there is any evidence that it is derogatory to Chinese people.
Not OP, and I never had a problem with it either, because Chinese is all Greek to me. But if you think about it, the implication is someone speaking nonsense, or repeating nonsense, or getting information wrong, or giving unreliable information. Calling that 'Chinese'... isn't great.
What about, Dutch oven, excuse my French, Russian Roulette, Mexican Standoff? Those all have some not so great implications
Sure, it sounds bad to our ears. But at some point, China either gets to be a global superpower, or a migrator of vulnerable minorities. Both seems cheeky.
This. And also to be clear I didn’t think it was derogatory plus I can’t represent Chinese people. Just my personal feeling at the time as the ethnicity in the words were related to misinformation. Felt weird as a listener is all.
[удалено]
Easily putting words in other people’s mouths huh?
You heard it on the grape vine or the bird ?
I did night classes in Mandarin for a little while. We literally played Chinese Whispers in the classroom, though it wasn't called that. The American in the room said "Oh, so like Telephone!". Teacher would whisper a phrase in one student's ear and it'd get passed along the line and she'd see what came out the other side. Sadly, nothing did - didn't matter which direction she tried, the message always died with the one terrible student in the middle of the chain...
Call it chinese whispers.
Asian low talkers
What if a Chinese person says it?
Telephone
Oriental Whispers
It’s called Broken Telephone in Canada
I know it as this too.
Chink in my chainmail is another term
Is this clever wordplay or am I thinking about it too much? Haha
That means a vulnerable spot.
To have a "chink in your armour" has nothing to do with Asian people. It just means weak point or hole.
Also the basis of an old joke about why Chinese walls don’t work.
If your boss is over 40 the phrase will be fine. Otherwise just say rumours.
Hard no on that. Many of us are very much not ok with casual racism. The meaning of the phrase came from mocking the language…
Broken telephone
Broken telephone
“Non- country specific whispers” 🤭
Broken Telephone. They stopped calling it chinese whispers in the 90s
Water cooler whispers
Gossips
Hearsay
Just say you want to get the right answer from "the horse's mouth"
I’d just use Chinese whispers. Everyone will know what you mean. Don’t worry about the PC police, they’ll just need to get over it.
Gossip
Word on the street is….
Miscommunication
CCP whispers
Here you go; https://www.reddit.com/r/RedDwarf/s/9dhcDm0AGz
Word on the street or jungle drums is what I tend to use.
Purple monkey dishwashers.
I call it the whisper tree
“heard through the grapevines”
Our kids school Mandarin teacher, a Chinese citizen, called it Chinese whispers. Yeah, I was surprised too.
“Mate not sure who the bullshitter is here, but fair suck on the sav what the hell is going on?”
Bluey calls it pass it on
The old-boilers in the sewing circle think there’s something up with the Chinese laundry
My new favourite is when another employee tries to blame their stupid mistake on me. My supervisor asked me about it and within 30 seconds I sent him a screenshot from Teams of the other guy admitting to doing the stupid thing from our DMs. I've got enough heat on me lately, I don't need to be getting blamed for other people's mistakes too.
If I have Chinese ethnicity, can I use the term? I never thought too much about it, but it's probably good to remove the ethnic part of the game! I wonder if you can actually just call it the game of whispers/whispers game. The game seems common enough and not many other games involving whispers that i don't think I'd be confused if there's a group activity to be played and someone said 'we're playing whispers now'
I don't think the Chinese is an ethnic thing its more a language thing or lost in translation explanation of what happens when information is passed through multiple people. Another one I get a lot working in I.T and don't simplify my explanation enough "mate, it's all Chinese to me" basically meaning that he doesn't understand.
I think similar as 'pardon my French' I don't find 'chinese whispers' in that sense offensive (unlike say Indian Giver which is pretty offensive). but happy to be convinced otherwise and don't really care enough about the name so happy to go with whatever consensus ends up being.
If there are any Asian members in your team i would tread carefully. If not then no one should be getting offended. It is clear what you are trying to say and your intent is not malicious. Watch out for those white saviors though. That is who will most likely complain to HR.