I really can't believe they'd ban a word for such a tenuous relationship, if indeed this isn't just a hoax, there are a lot worse words in circulation; I've used it occasionally and didn't have a clue about where it came from did it make any difference? Not really.
I think this shows some people just over anaylse things.

I'm surprised they haven't included "Rule of thumb".

Someone at work was talking about this this morning.

We decided that even if the origin is racist, since none of us knew the origin was racist until today, and since its never used with racist connotations at all to our knowledge - we wouldn't worry about it.

And we're Hackney Council - land of ridiculous PC people.

(If I get an email from uber-boss in the next half hour telling me about an office ban I'll let you know though!)

It seems to be true about "cotton-picking" though.

I added a comment on one of their forms, and they used it. Scarily, this means that all the moronic coments they print probably come from real people. I wish I didn't know that.