As I get older, I have more and more sympathy for people who can’t keep up with socially acceptable terminology. At the same time, I have less and less tolerance for people who deliberately use outdated, insulting language.
That was simply the euphemism du jour, on the eternal euphemism treadmill.
can you really call it a euphemism when it just used to be a medical term back then?
Pro tip: It still is a medical term. Internet activists deciding they don’t like a word doesn’t actually change the word.
It’s not only the ‘SJW’ crowd who are asking people to stop using it, but also the medical field, patients, and their caregivers directly asking everyone to stop.
The results of both the parent and professional surveys support a move away from the use of the term mental retardation. The majority of parents indicated that they would be upset if a physician used the term mental retardation.
Here’s my random two cents about disability euphemisms.
I personally think “special”, which was pretty popular like 10 years ago, was/is pretty demeaning. Even the more recent “differently-abled” feels weird.
I think the plain language of “disability”, which seems to have been around quite a while now, is fine. It’s what is says on the tin, without judgement.
Why does everyone assume it’s “eternal” or “never ending”? Each time the euphemisms change, it’s due to more inclusivity, more empathy, and more attempts to understand the plight of others. It’s reasonable to assume that it’ll stop at a point when we reach the right terms. It probably has already, and I just can’t think of any examples off the top of my head…
Give it a few more years and then “mentally disabled” will be the new retarded. We’ll cringe at how people would say they’re “disabled”.
I work with the mentally disabled and have for a while now. I love my guys but it’s so annoying seeing how new terms will come and go throughout the years constantly.
The Euphemism Treadmill might stop when the term is so clinically dry as “mentally disabled”. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue of a schoolyard bully the way “retarded” does. I dunno, we’ll see.
retarded doesn’t have any more negative meaning than disabled. it’s just about how we use it.
Culture evolves. I will say, some of the new terms drive me nuts because they technically mean the same thing, but are grammatically awkward or are otherwise clunky when conveying the same message.
Like sure, I technically have a disability, please don’t try to frame it as a good thing or something to make it sound better. It just sounds condescending. I don’t need pity, I’m living my life to the fullest now :P
I mean, they are disabled! This whole “differently abled” is completely out of touch with reality.
I am so glad you posted this. Sometimes I get into little arguments about word usage and younger folk truly don’t understand how not only commonplace word usage that is considered some sort of insult now but how officially they were used. Near me was a place that helped folks with all sorts of independent living including housing and job training and just counseling and it was called the NSAR and Im almost sure the R was retardation. Think it changed its name and I can’t find anything on it now but I did find like this https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/70s/70/70s-WWH-NARC.pdf
It’s hard to fully explain how the reception of words change to people who haven’t seen it first-hand.
Even some bad words, which might be incredibly rude to say today, didn’t have the same oomph in the past, so while the definition technically might not have changed, the intended severity of it has.
yeah and part of it is they were used as insults but it was more co-opting than anything else. retarded is pretty legit as saying someone is retarded can be proper, but someone will call someone retarded who is not as an insult. then shortening is almost never correct. You might say someone is retarded and that is a correct thing about their condition but saying their a retard is not as its sorta a made up word based on the condition and further tard or tarded is a way to make it more derogatory. Its like homosexual. its a word that means something without being derogatory but to someone who thinks being a homosexual is bad will use it as an insult and using the word homo is almost always an insult (the rare exception is usage among friends to sorta deflate its meaning). When it comes down to it is that folks who spent decades with a word being legitamate will have trouble when it becomes a taboo thing for a decade or so.
I have a special needs uncle and my whole life I grew up with him being called “retarded” and it not being a slur.
It was just a way to describe his mental functioning.
To me it doesn’t have the same impact because I had never heard it used pejoratively until after it was a no-no word.
You didn’t call retarded people retards, you called your friends retards when they were acting retarded.
Disney’s Recess was censored to remove the term midget
Apparently now little person/lesser human is the preferred term
I find it hard to believe lesser human would be used as a term. Its a bit funny because again midget was also used as opposed to dwarf by the relative proportionality even though dwarfism was appropriate for both types. Was it being used to describe someone in the show with dwarfism though because if not then it was sorta being used derogatorily.
Fun fact: word usage changes over time. For example, “idiot” used to be a technical medical term for extreme mental disability. We live in the Age of Information, and if somebody doesn’t want to learn about historical context that’s actually willful ignorance on their part.
We have a desire to say it nicely but the new polite words always become slurs again eventually. You’ll probably be shamed for saying disabled in another generation by a holier than thou thirteen year old.
