Speaking as a Crazy Faggot

[jimkeller]

There has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere and in the media lately about words. Advocates for the mentally ill have been gaining traction with educating people that the use of "crazy" as a generic insult is demeaning. Kobe Bryant was caught on tape calling a referee a "faggot," but in his non-apology stated that he was using the term as a

Comments

[essentialsaltes]

It's tough. Culture and language is a behemoth with lots of inertia in it. And the crosscultural problems you note just make things even more complicated. I was surprised to find that people spaz out about spazHow many of us have even a fleeting mental image of gypsies when we say we were gypped? Or mutatis mutandis if a thing (rather than a person) is gay, lame, or retarded? I feel these words (in certain restricted applications) have reached or are close to reaching 'generic' status

[jimkeller]

We actually had a great deal of trouble when I was working for NASA and had a character who had to insult a fellow character coming up with terms that aren't actually terms of derision for certain disfavored groups or types of people. The end result was that IR-2 was a lot more creative in his cursing than most people are.

[stacymckenna]

Shakespearean, even?

http://www.insults.net/html/shakespeare/

[jimkeller]

Except that I'd never have been able to get away with something like "ratcatcher" -- using a profession as an insult.

[gina]

The other one I find interesting is 'basket case':

"1919, Amer.Eng., originally a reference to quadriplegics as a result of catastrophic wounds suffered in World War I (the military vehemently denied there were any such in its hospitals), from basket + case. Probably literal, i.e., stuck in a basket, but basket had colloquial connotations of poverty (begging) and helplessness long before this. Figurative sense of "person emotionally unable to cope" is from 1967."

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/basket+case)

[essentialsaltes]

wow!