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...