(no subject)

[dreamer_easy]

It irks me when people use the words "retarded" and "spastic" as insults or jokes. It's so commonplace that I'm sure there's no malice involved, only thoughtlessness - the kids throwing them around may have no idea what they actually mean. Or meant. Long disused except as children's insults, the words have become somewhat detached from their original meanings.

In fact, I thought perhaps I was being a bit hypocritical - didn't words like "moron" and "idiot", which I use quite happily, once have technical medical definitions? A quick rummage at askoxford.com revealed I was mistaken. "Moron" and "idiot", from the Greek, mean "stupid person" and "ignoramus" respectively.

The word "cretin", though, was actually once used to mean someone with congenital hypothyroidism: from Swiss French, it means "Christian". The dictionary suggests that this was meant to remind people that the intellectually disabled were fellow human beings.

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to track down more about that usage - the words weren't coined for that purpose but they were used for a while.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Is 'retarded' the same, then? Something that is retarded has been slowed down or impeded. A person who is called retarded is called that because they're developmentally 'delayed'.

When I was a kid, it was certainly a term used by the medical/psychological establishment. My school had special classes set aside for what it termed the TMR and EMR kids, or the trainable/educable mentally retarded.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm referring to "moron" and "idiot".

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I know, I just mean that it's another word that already existed but was adopted by the medical establishment for this purpose.

[alawston.livejournal.com]

I first encountered the word 'retarded' in really bad books, I remember seeing the phrase 'retarded Spring' to refer to a long winter. Then it popped up in French "Je regrette d'arriver en retard, Madame." so it just never seemed to be a word with particularly bad connotations.

I still can't get that worked up about it, possibly because I've worked with children and have had a fresh reminder of the charming words they use when they WANT to be offensive to the intellectually disabled - I'd rather be called a retard than a flid, window-licker or special (pronounced SHPESH-ULLLLLLL)