I wasn't aware there was anything wrong with that word. Is it derogatory?

It's generally used by non-scientists to refer to scientists. People don't tend to use it to refer to themselves (though a few might, in a humorously self-deprecating fashion).

It might have a dismissive or mocking connotation, depending on the intention of the person using it. I guess in the worst case, its use could be described as 'othering'

https://google.com/search?q=define%3A+othering

English is not my mother tongue. When I reached the word boffins I stopped and opened the OSX dictionary which gave the right perspective... Because I instantly related boffins with buffoons which has a totally different meaning and didn't make any sense to call F1 engineers buffoons ?! It's okay if it comes from Archimedes, Francis Bacon and another 10-15 fellas I guess because it's kind of relative... But if I were an F1 engineer, I would had a hard time accepting such a degradative term from anyone else!

ps. Funny how fast all these vivid thoughts crossed my mind in less the 2 seconds.

Hey, the same thing happens with native English speakers. I just heard a radio spot where someone was reprimanded for using the term "pussyfoot" at a meeting.

That's nothing, though, compared to this: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1999_02_02_newy...

Don't be silly. Other than perhaps in a school playground where _any_ word said repeatedly enough can be considered abusive, boffin is not word that anyone can take offence from really.

Many scientists do take offence.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/jul/2...

From the description on Wikipedia, it doesn't seem to be a pejorative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin

It has a slightly negative connotation.

In my experience it's actually rarely used negatively (ymmv of course) - I only really hear it when the context is "these people (the boffins) do something about which I don't understand", so it's almost self-deprecating to call them boffins. On the otherhand it's also not particularly positive, either.

As an example: Stephen Fry uses it, and he is a.) a geek and b.) not the kind of person to insult people for that kind of thing - when he uses it he always just means that they're people doing something complicated that he doesn't know about.

Stephen Fry is incredibly condescending almost constantly, so I wouldn't cite him in defense of the word.

Indeed. Especially so for children. In British schools in the 80's/90's at least, it was commonly used if you enjoyed class a little too much.