I was sitting in the theatre today waiting for the play to begin. (If you're interested it is a new play about The Kinks - great to hear their songs again, but the 'book' was weak.)
A few rows in front was a head with shoulder length hair, glossy, colour of iron filings, 60s flick-ups at the ends. If you don't know what those are you weren't around in the 60s. Every time the head moved the glossy hair danced. All very fine but the head was on the meaty shoulders of a middle-aged man in thick glasses and a black faux-leather jacket. Why did the hair, which should have looked so appealing, seem to me repellent on this man?
I turned for help to my companion, who is as much of a snoot as I am (see lower blogs and keep up there at the back). 'Is this prejudice on my part or good taste?' I asked. He sat for a moment in silence, and then said, 'You could say you are showing discrimination, which neatly covers both without directly saying which.'
We then had a discussion about whether to BE discriminating would imply the same, whereas to discriminate doesn't work both ways because in its prejudicial sense you would need to be discriiminating against something. I felt a blog coming on...