Not sure what to call this one

[aycheb]

There’s a post I’ve thought about making several times but my thoughts on the issues always start out chaotic and unfocused and by the time I’ve thought them into line the moment has passed. It’s a post about ablism/disablism and language, about the rights and wrongs of using words like blind and deaf and retarded and lame and autistic (the one I

Comments

[joe_sweden]

Very interesting post. I've often pondered this on the topic of words that relate to me (as I find it hard to feel I've got a right to comment on the words that don't...even if I do have that right, I still feel uncomfortable. Not sure why really, but anyway

[aycheb]

Braindeath fun, communication hard.

I'm old enough that the one time I heard my eldest using gay to mean rubbish it took a double take to figure out that was the meaning and then more double take not overreact (my baby said that! Nooo!) and give him the impression that it was a fun word to annoy parents with. Like fart. And the complexities of who can say what and to who? Basically ducking the issue by going with thoughtfulness is good but that's a bit like saying kittens are good. If you're a cat person that is. Aaargh.

I think the Gordon Brown thing was in a Guardian op ed a month or too back but it might have been a Guardian article about another article in another paper or an LJ post about a Guardian article about another article in another paper about somebody else. Or I dreamt it. I think it did happen because I can sort of see why someone might go there but that's not exactly evidence.

[yourlibrarian]

Wow, I'd never seen autism used as an insult (or an insulting critique). It seems...so specific to me, like calling someone bipolar. One thing that strikes me though is that it speaks to people's familiarity with autism as a condition (and a crisis) because if people don't know what it is, it becomes a meaningless term to throw around. I don't think this would have been true 20 years ago.

“He was blind to the consequences and deaf to protesting voices.” Or “the economy is crippled, the situation is crazy...particularly to someone with the non-metaphorical condition, carry the strong implication that the condition itself is a sign of moral failing.As someone who doesn't have a physical disability (yet) I certainly can't speak to how these terms are received by someone who does. But as someone who has used the terms before it seems to me that it's no different than calling one a child ("ONG, are you 12?") or an old man. I think the suggestion is that someone is trying to engage in behavior that they have no claim for. We

[aycheb]

I haven't seen it outside of people trying to intellectualise "X was rude to me" situations but I don't hang around playgrounds much. It does sound technical but I do remember both spastic and cretin being used as taunts at primary school back in the seventies (and none of us knew what the words actually meant). An awful lot of people, kids included know someone who knows someone who's autistic these days so that would definitely be a factor too.

It seems to me that it's no different than calling one a child ("ONG, are you 12?") or an old man. I think the suggestion is that someone is trying to engage in behavior that they have no claim for. We understand behavior that comes from people in certain circumstances (say someone who barely speaks our language), and are majorly irritated by people laying claim to behavior they have no right to.I think there's some truth about that although children and old men can get offended when they hear that kind of insult being used without registering their presence. So one argument is that simply

[elynross]

I've been consciously working for that last year and a half to trim my vocabulary of ableist words/idioms (or at least realize I'm using them and how/why), and I had no idea how difficult it would be or how pervasive they are. Simply cutting out metaphors for insanity, used to say that someone is annoying, or behaving oddly, or something similar, it's amazing how many ways we have to say it: few fries short of a Happy Meal, not playing with a full deck, bats in his belfry, are you crazy? Are you insane? Are you out of your mind?

And re: lame, it's not just American teenagers; I used it more than I would have thought. I've substituted "full of fail," or somesuch, which works pretty well, but I keep tripping myself up. "She's driving me nuts/mad/crazy/insane!!!" etc. Worth it to me, and very eye-opening, if only because it has made me pay attention to my language, and think about the implicit assumptions built in to it.

[aycheb]

Very eye-opening, it's something I've only paid attention to recently. The not-quite-exact alternative to "lame" that comes to mind is shite, which is interesting. Maybe a little honest profanity would be a good thing, it seems that often these words are a way of dancing around making personal accusations too directly by calling the fail something that can't be helped and at once assuming that no one listening really has the condition and implying that the condition is itself a fail. I have noticed using or wanting to use ableist words for stupid far too often, which is kind of revealing both about me and academic value systems.

[elynross]

I have noticed using or wanting to use ableist words for stupid far too often, which is kind of revealing both about me and academic value systems.

Oh, Lord, YES. I've noticed that, too! My first alternatives for eliminating "lame" generated a whole bunch of synonyms for stupid, and I've become aware of how often most of us resort to calling things variations on "stupid" when really (for me) most often I actually mean "I don't understand how this could happen/people could do/believe this" or "I don't agree with what's going on/what they're doing."

I thought I listened to how I said things, but apparently not as closely as I thought.