From: mdhangton@gmail.com   
      
   On Monday, September 1, 2014 8:02:05 AM UTC-4, Jacey Bedford wrote:   
      
   > as well as discovering that there is no word in the USA equivalent to    
   >    
   > the British 'boffin'. (We ended up with 'scientist' but that really    
   >    
   > doesn't cover it.)   
   >    
   If you mean boffin in the sense of research technician, there is.   
      
   I've heard some scientists in the US take a superior posture toward graduate   
   students, technicians, experimentalists or any sort of scientist at any level   
   who is in the role of actually carrying out scientific research with their own   
   hands, and refer to    
   them as "grunts."  The implication is that they are losers who have been   
   passed over for promotion to a managerial or administrative role, or possibly   
   that their educational pedigrees are are inferior, or generally that they are   
   just losers because they    
   are doing research instead of handling money.  It may or may not be seen as   
   deprecative by the person who uses it, like calling another writer a wannabe.    
   It is more likely to be seen as insulting by the person it is applied to.   
      
   A similar phrase, that I have only heard once, is "lab lackey," which is   
   definitely insulting.   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)