If you haven't heard about this, prepare yourself. We live in such a politically correct world that even the most harmless joke can mean you will lose your job and will be thrown into the outer darkness forever. 

Prof. Richard Ned Lebow, 76, was in a packed lift at a convention in San Francisco. When the bell on the lift sounded that it had reached a floor, Prof. Lebow said "ladies lingerie". It was classic "Are you being served?", the hit comedy series that used to air on BBC1. But Dr Simona Sharoni, a professor of women's and gender studies at Merrimack College, Massachusetts, and one of her colleagues didn't like the joke. And they weren't going to leave it there.