Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 12, 2019

But jerk is already taken.

must be Jef’s doing

If he doesn’t have a problem with being called Rat, …

And then there are we walkers. We hate being called pedestrians, because pedestrian has the additional meaning of ordinary, and boring. Rise up, Walkers!!

Hey Mother Truckers! You need a new name!

Not all cyclists are horrible people. Probably not even half of them. Of course not all automobile drivers are horrible people either. Maybe not even half of them.

I do think that using a bike for your primary means of transport probably does make you a lot more paranoid about those people driving the big heavy killer-vehicles.

So now we shouldn’t call a cyclist a cyclist? I’ve got another word for you, cyclist. But you may not like that either.

I first learned that some people don’t like being directly identified when I first found out that garbage collectors (a perfectly honorable profession) wanted to be called “sanitary engineers.” Okey-doke! Just…please…don’t rattle those cans so loudly at 5 a.m.!

Better name for cyclists…..targets

So many bike lanes! So few bikes!

So many buses! So few passengers!

So much government! So many idiots!

I don’t understand why Pastis wants to try to squeeze humor out of adding to the divisions among people. Very few people who ride bikes are like that.

I suppose you could call them bi-cyclists.

Another name for cyclists? Auto Shaming Smugness, also known as A.S.S.

hey, cartoonists, you need a new spiel?

Re-cycled bi-cycle humour.

Cyclists = Road Leeches …. because somebody else paid for the roadways they demand to ride on …

That’s much better than being disliked for thinking you own the road.

And I suppose that all the cyclists want you to also use their preferred singular personal pronoun, “they.”

We’re already known as “Knights-of-the-Road”… You wanna argue? I’ll ram you off the motorway… Oops… masked slipped a little there… Yes… as I was saying… “Knights-of-the-Road”… 10/4…

Cervelo, are you going to weigh in on this?

It is the thing itself, not the word that causes dislike.

Truckers new name semi road warriors.

So, WHY are guys who ride a MotorCYCLE called “Bikers”, but guys who ride a BIKE are called “Cyclists”???

AND, if you don’t like truckers, try to live one month without using ANYTHING that was on a truck at one time or another. You will end up naked in a cave, living on nuts and berries! 35 years driving over-the-road, several MILLION safe miles, by the way… in spite of the idiots in the cars… and I have the ATA awards to show for it, too!

Take that Jef.

And they really do. https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/experts-cyclist-word-dehumanizes-bike-riders/

The word has taken on a negative connotation because of the behavior of the people it refers to.

If I’m crossing the street with the light, if I see a car coming toward the red light heading my way, I don’t worry about it and just cross. If I see a cyclist doing the same thing, I stop and wait to see what he’s going to do, because I know he may just go right through that light and hit me.

Paris, there are NO “maybes” about it!

Not sure I’d pick truckers as the first group to confront.

Gasp! Watch it! Those truckers can be misconstrued as…..

Look who’s talking.

If they don’t like “cyclists” they can always go with “impotents.”

Not all riders-of-bicycles act like the selfish, infantile, arrogant road hogs that cause the trouble. No matter what they are called, we can tell the difference but the bad ones will continue to make us wary of all of them.

Cyclists like Jef don’t consider themselves mere mortals anyway, correct?

More Crocs and little guard duck please.

The Cycleism is coming…Coming….COMING!!!!!

Leaving them alone,they will soon become extinct.

Man, there’s a lot of angry people on this page.

When I worked at a logistics/distribution center, we’d tell the drivers to get the truck outta here.

Living in a country where bicycles are an economic necessity for lots of folks, I have noticed that the attitude towards cyclists is very different than in the U.S.A. Drivers are a lot more tolerant of bicycle riders than motorcyclists.

There aren’t many of the lycra-clad cyclists here, thank goodness. The rare few you do see on the roads are serious bicycle racing competitors, not the obnoxious roadhogs you encounter in the States.

Lots of car-ists seem to get triggered by any mention of people who use bicycles.

I’ve got a few suggestions …

If “Cyclist” is demeaning… one must wonder how it came to be so.

Personally I’m with the crowd. I think cycling is great, but some of the most rude, arrogant people I’ve met on the road were cyclists. Of course, to be fair they’re probably exactly the same way when they’re driving their automobiles. It’s not that they’re cyclists; they’re just rude, arrogant people who are more visible than hiding inside a car.

There are good cyclists… polite, yielding, follow the law, don’t stretch out across the road. It’s the bad ones that give cycling a bad reputation.

Oh, it just hit me: if cyclists travel the same path every day, are they re-cyclers?

Where’s Jeff?

Call ’em psychoists.

And another group: don’t call them stewardess, call ’em trolley dollies.

Is this real? If so, it’s an indication of too much blood flowing to their legs and not enough to their brains.

Wow, there are a lot of triggered people here today!

Call me anything you like. Just don’t call me late to dinner. :-)

Antibikeite?

Considering how many names they call those of us who drive cars because we are old or simply work so far from home, the CYCLISTS can go screw themselves.

I heard about this some months ago. As a cyclist, I have no problem with the term. It is just some more made-up PC wannabe nonsense.

And, if we do want to go down this road of lunacy, we need to change other words like teacher, governor, astronaut, senator, employee, ad infinitum. We could not refer to people by their job titles anymore, even in the workplace. Imagine how much more burdensome conversation could become. Just stop it now.

Sure sounds better than “Spandex Encased Guys Hogging the Road.”

How about Cyclepaths?

Oooh, I knew this one would bring out the keyboard cadets from all sides. I love peeking on here every once in a while to see how polarizing the smallest little thing can be… keeps me from ever getting optimistic about the human condition. #sadbuttrue

I would want to be called a Cyclops.

I like Rat!

Who cares what cyclists think?