Language

Forgot to say below  - read this. It's called 'Why I don't use the word 'retarded''.  

Edited to add: I was looking for a picture to illustrate this and stupidly typed 'retarded' into Google images, fondly imagining there would be some clever thing that supported the notion that the word is Not Good. Dear oh dear - more fool me. You'll just have to do without a graphic. But then I found this, from Ouch!, which is, it turns out, the BBC's site for disabled people. It asked a load of people, disabled and otherwise, which words they found the most offensive. No surprises at the top, but "special", "brave" and "handicapped" all make the top ten. What is a euphemism-hating person supposed to do, though, when so many of the SN people she knows are in fact all three?

Comments

[Rufusruff]

"what is a euphemism-hating person supposed to do"? rather implies that you think calling people "handicapped" or "special" is being nice about it. Not if they (and their parents/loved ones) don't want you to, it isn't.

Why have a group noun at all? They are individuals: call them by their names, or if you have to lump people together, "*people* with..." People First, as a well-known self advocacy group has it.

[Emma Bowler]

Just to clarify certain groups of Disabled people do reclaim words eg Deaf people may refer to themselves as Deafies, people with CP say spaz, disabled people generally say crip, Thalidomiders may say Flid, fliddy, flipper; blind people say blindie, blindo and so on.
Where people get confused about this is when they hear people using these words and so think they can use them.... this is not the case - it's OK for a person within this group to use the word but not for those outside of it, get it!?
www.emmabowler.co.uk

[India Knight]

Bitter, much?

[jongleur]

Of themselves, words mean nothing; their usage and interpretation are another matter. As long as we derive comfort and sustenance from our being more fortunate than others, then any word, no matter how well intentioned, can be pressed into service. Cretin! (a Christian, and one of God's children) Spastic!! (a person with cerebral palsy, no more and no less) and so on. As anyone who hangs round a playground knows, even your SN (Special Needs!!!) is a term of abuse. And, should we wish to be self-righteously pissed off, any term, no matter how sensitively crafted, can be construed as the cruellest slight. So - as the young are wont to say - get over it. Semantic quibbling and knee jerk reactions to idiomatic shibboleths just don't address the central issues. And neither do blogs like yours.

[India Knight]

Isobel - yes, perfect sense. Do feel free to write an epic essay and email it to me though - is v interesting topic. As I've written somewhere else on this blog, I used "spastic" in both of my novels (and possibly "retard"), something - knowing what I know now - I regret. I wonder if there is a politicised group somewhere trying to reclaim either of these words, in the manner of "nigger" or "queer". Must try and find out.

[Isobel]

If the Times comment box ran to several thousand words I could probably quite easily fill it up with an essay on labels and names for children and adults with 'disabilities.' But as it can't - I won't. I could also recount personal experiences of having a child with disabilities and names and labels, so I'll just stick with the conclusion to the unwritten essay:

There are lots of names and labels for those with disabilities/special needs. Special needs, which isn't bad is becoming negative - parents not wanting to send their children to a school because it's perceived that the school has a high qoutient of children with special needs. Kids being cruel to each other and seeing the label special needs to mean bad things.

The phrase I like, and my friends and fellow parents of children with disabilities, prefer is 'differently abled'

We're all differently abled. I can't draw stick men, never mind recreate the Mona Lisa. My son who is differently abled can climb a climbing wall, I can't, but he has real trouble with basic maths.

Hope that makes sense?

[Gipsy]

Oh my. That post made me feel awful. I recently gave up on taking issue every time someone uses words like spaz, flid, crip, retard, and gay. I just got tired - it happens so incredibly often. Now I feel awful.

Flid is one that really gets to me. I notice that it is much younger people who use it the most. I have two step kids, one now 23 and one 19. I know that they and their friends used that word all the time when they were at school, and had no idea of the context or meaning. For my generation, the 'thalidamide' generation was very very visible - they were our older brothers and sisters, people we saw every day. There was a normality to it. But unlike conditions of a genetic origin, there are no more children with this condition. So to younger generations, it has already become forgotten. 'It is just a word, the context has changed, it doesn't really mean the same thing anymore'. Aaargghhh all those defences make me soooo mad! Would people just stop and think, really think, about what they're saying?