Word 'spooky' banned by National Theatre Scotland over racial slur fears

dailyrecord.co.uk:

It might be synonymous with Halloween – but a major arts organisation has banned the word “spooky” from its shows.Despite everything from supermarkets to VisitScotland planning to use it in the lead-up to October 31, National Theatre Scotland (NTS) has dropped it after spooky was flagged up as a racist slur.It was last used by NTS in 2016 for A Christmas Carol at the Old Kirk in Kirkcaldy, which it described as a “spooky location”.But the charity’s commitment to fight racism, brought in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, has identified offensive words… including spooky.A theatre source said: “No one has complained about it but there were worries they could in the future."There’s been a lot of training and meetings since the BLM