"Scorpion," 9 p.m. ET Monday, CBS: Well, this is a pile of nonsense, but at least it's more or less inoffensive nonsense.
While both portmanteau and -ish serve to get a point across economically and are, in that sense, both very modern and more or less inoffensive, portmanteau, at least, calls on an element of cleverness: "staycation," "bromance".
I imagine that The AP probably would have liked to keep on using "illegal immigrant" as a compact, more-or-less-accurate, inoffensive term — because there are no better short alternatives ("Undocumented" is vague and euphemistic. "Unauthorized" is clunky. And so on).
Mr. McQuaid, who has a wry sense of humor, neatly combed brown hair and a lean frame, seems committed to carrying on the paper's legacy as a political baseball bat, albeit in an inoffensive, less cruel way.
Lionel Messi was handed a retrospective yellow card by the Spanish Football Federation for the perhaps less powerful but certainly entirely inoffensive "Happy birthday mum".
To be a little less than real, to remain inoffensive -- that is the compact (with A&E, if not with his public or his god) that Robertson, in pushing past that point, has broken.
It leveraged cable's innate advantages over the big broadcasters: the freedom to depict R-rated themes, language and action; the flexibility to air each episode multiple times in a week; and the latitude to worry less about advertiser pressures and forgo dumbed-down, inoffensive fare aimed at the broadest possible audience.
"So I suppose the question is: if an offensive word is used in what's meant to be an inoffensive way, does it make it any less hurtful?
While Chen called it "inoffensive" and "mildly catchy", other reviewers were less sympathetic.
Back in Australia, Menzies' traditional Lucia was arguably less flawed, but it also took far fewer risks, a safe, inoffensive but ultimately toothless production that in its eagerness to merely please shied away from more affecting statements.
In this part of the country, niceness is less an expression of generosity than it is of reserve: assuming an inoffensive blandness is a way to avoid drawing attention to oneself, and the most reliable means of keeping others at bay.
