Right, just like no one 10 years ago thought " man, that was a retarded call from the ref at the football game last night" had anything to do with a person with Down Syndrome.
I disagree. I think there has always been discomfort with retarded.
I disagree. When I was a kid (the 60's) "retarded" used on the regular and it was thought to be funny to call someone that.
"Why would you ruin perfectly good peanuts by adding candy corn? That's like saying hey, I have these awesome nachos, guess I better add some dryer lint." - Nonny
Right, just like no one 10 years ago thought " man, that was a retarded call from the ref at the football game last night" had anything to do with a person with Down Syndrome.
I disagree. I think there has always been discomfort with retarded.
It used to be perfectly acceptable (a very long time ago) to refer to someone as being retarded when they in fact were mentally retarded.
My brother is what's now known as developmentally disabled but when I was small and people asked me why my brother didn't live with us, we always said that is was because he was mentally retarded. It was said innocently and without malice or harmful intent.
Times changed and people grew to become politically correct and they changed the wording.
I dont like it when people say so,etching is "retarded" but it's not a hill I'm going to die on either.
It is seriously offensive when someone refers to someone as "She is so Bipolar" because they are moody or bitchy. I hear it a lot and it is extremely hurtful. I find the majority of people have no clue exactly what Bipolar means.
It is seriously offensive when someone refers to someone as "She is so Bipolar" because they are moody or bitchy. I hear it a lot and it is extremely hurtful. I find the majority of people have no clue exactly what Bipolar means.
I agree. "Crazy" is a general term which does not refer to a specific illness, whereas "bipolar" is a specific diagnosis and people use it incorrectly all the time, not just b/c the person to which they're referring doesn't carry that diagnosis, but b/c people don't know why it actually means.
Crazy, nuts, and insane don't bother me at all. They're generic descriptions of out of the norm behavior.
IMO, bipolar weather is also a legitimate use when the weather is going from one extreme to another. It's shifting between two completely different states, which is the whole origin of the term anyway.
Using specific diagnosis in a general way is one of my pet peeves, though. Especially in the news. There is no way for most casual observers to know if a person is bipolar or OCD, and using the terms to describe mild deviations in expected behavior minimizes the potential severity and dangers of mental illness and shows a general lack of comprehension.
I'm older. I recall mentally retarded as a medical term that was properly used in that context until very recently. A lot of advocacy and governmental support organizations in this country still go by acronyms that that once included the "R" word. Most area ARCs do. A local lawmaker only recently proposed a change to the state's department of MH/MR.
The change seems driven as much by the trend toward using person first language as by the need to disassociate from what has become a hurtful epitaph. I wonder how long before the masses co-opt ID as a term at the cool kids' lunch table.
In Autism World, the notion of intelligence is expressed by the term "functioning". High functioning just means the person with ASD has an IQ that measures over 70.
The one nobody here has mentioned is the use of the term "special", as in special snowflake. Or "speshhhshul" as DS would say. But he kind of is.
Just as an example of how our language evolves over time, when my brother was born with DS in 1951 the doctors referred to him as a "mongolian idiot."
Yes! I have an uncle with Down's and I clearly remember mongoloid being used when I was a kid.
My FIL still uses that term. The first time he said it ( to be clear, it's only been used twice in the 12 years I've known H's family), I had one of those "Did he just say what I think he said?" moments.
It is seriously offensive when someone refers to someone as "She is so Bipolar" because they are moody or bitchy. I hear it a lot and it is extremely hurtful. I find the majority of people have no clue exactly what Bipolar means.
I agree. "Crazy" is a general term which does not refer to a specific illness
Post by PinkSquirrel on Dec 1, 2013 9:20:19 GMT -5
It is already not considered PC to say thing like crazy, nuts, insane among one of my groups of friends. I get it, I really do, but it's exhausting to constantly have words axed from your vocabulary and to constantly be walking on eggshells thinking something you're not supposed to say is going to slip out.
What are everyone's feelings on "dude, what is your damage?"
I'm late to the post but this reminds me, my dh would always say "what's your malfunction?" (Not just to me lol but as a thing like instead of are you a "r word" or something) I was like no, no. A) it sounds dumb as fuck and b) it's just as offensive, so someone with MR or mental illness etc are "malfunctioning" I don't know. Seems wrong but he was surprised at my response. Maybe I'm sensitive.
i think words like "crazy" and "insane" will never really be completely taboo, because...well...the world needs adjectives. however, i think they exist on a spectrum. remember that stupid "they're coming to take me away" song? it was boycotted and ultimately taken off the air in the 60's for all of the reasons in the OP! and the 60's weren't exactly an era of overly sensitive PCness.
I think this is what I was trying to say earlier: it's a spectrum.
i think words like "crazy" and "insane" will never really be completely taboo, because...well...the world needs adjectives.
The exact point at which this attitude can be applied isn't really going to be anywhere near universal.
I wish we as a society would focus all of this emotional energy on something that will make a palpable difference in the quality of life of our people, rather than sanitizing our language for everyone's protection.
I'm confused what your bottom line is here, Stella's. Are you advocating for bringing back "that's so gay," or "***-rigged," or "Jew 'em down?" I think we need to accept a degree of sanitization of we don't want this trash in our language.
Crazy, nuts, and insane don't bother me at all. They're generic descriptions of out of the norm behavior.
IMO, bipolar weather is also a legitimate use when the weather is going from one extreme to another. It's shifting between two completely different states, which is the whole origin of the term anyway.
Using specific diagnosis in a general way is one of my pet peeves, though. Especially in the news. There is no way for most casual observers to know if a person is bipolar or OCD, and using the terms to describe mild deviations in expected behavior minimizes the potential severity and dangers of mental illness and shows a general lack of comprehension.
I agree with all of this and you make a good point that simply using the word bipolar does not mean that one is referencing bipolar affective disorder, just using the original meaning of the word. I hadn't thought of that.
I agree. "Crazy" is a general term which does not refer to a specific illness
You mean like "retarded"?
No, not at all. Retarded comes from the term "mentally retarded" which is an actual diagnosis with actual parameters. Just now, with the release of DSM V is this term being officially changed to intellectual disability. "Crazy" has never been a diagnosis or an official medical term. Crazy and retarded are not analogous terms.
No. Retarded comes from the term "mentally retarded" which is an actual diagnosis with actual parameters. Just now, with the release of DSM IV is this term being officially changed to intellectual disability. "Crazy" has never been a diagnosis or an official medical term. Crazy and retarded are not analogous terms.
But the term "retarded" alone, without qualifiers, isn't used in a medical context.
No. Retarded comes from the term "mentally retarded" which is an actual diagnosis with actual parameters. Just now, with the release of DSM IV is this term being officially changed to intellectual disability. "Crazy" has never been a diagnosis or an official medical term. Crazy and retarded are not analogous terms.
But the term "retarded" alone, without qualifiers, isn't used in a medical context.
Yup. And last time I checked, people use "slow" as an insult as well. Maybe we should nix that one too.
Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? Because your point seems to have gotten lost here. Any word can be used as an insult. That doesn't mean they are all equal.
I disagree. I think there has always been discomfort with retarded.
(Raises eyebrows)
And gay?
Do you think the average person describing something lame as "so gay!" In the 90s was thinking about dudes who love dudes when they said it?
Ugh, the 90s! I was in Jr High/starting HS in the mid-late 90s and called so many people on saying things were "so gay" in a derogatory manner. My twin sister was a big offender and I called her on it every time.