Is the acronym PIGS (or PIIGS) offensive?

To my Spanish ears, the acronym PIGS (for Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) or PIIGS (for Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) sounds offensive. The Spanish equivalent “cerdo” is a strong word rarely said in jest. In other cultures, the concept is perhaps even more vexing.

It puzzles me that the international magazine The Economist, a political correctness champion most of the time, keeps using PIGS or PIIGS and apparently thinks nothing of it. Is there a linguistic explanation to what I see as unexpected insensitiveness by this magazine?

Solution 1:

Pig has a wide range of figurative uses - They're nearly all "unfavourable", but they're certainly not all "offensive". For example...

A wall where the bricks aren't laid level is said to have a pig in it.

To make a pig's ear of something means to do it badly, wrongly or awkwardly.

Pig-iron is crude iron from a smelting furnace, cast in oblong blocks (ingots, or "pigs").

In the current (Euro-) economic climate, PIGS and PIIGS obviously carry "unfavourable" connotations. Any/all of the "anacronymised" countries could bring down the Euro, with potentially disastrous economic, political, and sociological consequences for millions of people.

Collectively referring to these countries as PIGS (rather than SPIG or GIPS, for example), is just dry humour reflecting the fact that collectively they represent a pig of a problem.

EDIT: Per comments below, it seems "I finished the maths exam, but the last question was a pig" is primarily British usage. This answer already has two downvotes, so I'm guessing some people find all figurative usage of "pig" offensive.

From my (UK) perspective, this usage of PIGS is similar to WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant). It's obviously intended to be derogatory/disparaging, but the word itself isn't offensive.

Solution 2:

In the United States pig is associated with having a big appetite, with "pigging out" - something one can admit to without loss of status. It's also used in the surrealistic or apocalyptic image of "when pigs fly," and to connote messiness (but not dirtiness) as in "your room is a pig pen." It's an amusing image, but doesn't seem to have the level of impact and potential insult that cochon does in French. (A French friend of mine would always point this out about the last name of an import agent we were dealing with - a Mr Cochon.)

PIGS joins the acronyms BRICS and CIVETS and indeed seems to have been designed from birth to discourage investment – as this Christian Science Monitor article points out:

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Verbal-Energy/2012/0120/BRICs-CIVETS-and-PIGS-What-s-in-a-name

Solution 3:

The Financial Times and Barclays Capital determined they wouldn't use the acronym PIIGS (and would instead spell out the countries it represents) in 2005 because "it can be construed as having pejorative undertones." The Wikipedia entry for the term declares it "is a pejorative acronym" and that "some news and economic organisations have limited or banned use of the term because of criticism regarding perceived offensive connotations."

The New York Times has used the acronym, but one article from November of 2011 indicates the sensitivity of the term with this sentence: "First there was Greece, and then the rest of what at first were called the PIIGS, but now, in a spate of political correctness, are called the GIIPS." And indeed GIIPS is a commonly used alternative acronym in place of PIIGS.

More: The Wall Street Journal ran PIIGS to the Slaughterhouse. Meet GIIPS. on July 15 2011 to announce an official acronym switch.