That’s fair, we can step back from the intricacies of this particular word and return to first principles - and I agree, this is an important first principle to discuss. After all this time disagreeing, we may have come back around that big circle to find that we really agreed all along.
I don’t really think I advocate for a concerted effort to change the english language the way you imagine. I want people to change the way they think, not the way they talk. I think if they change the way they think, this will certainly change the way they talk. Not the other way around.
I try to invite people to take a look at the words we use as a vehicle for taking a look at the way we use them - the intentions and the context. Why do we use these words this way? What do they mean? Who can be hurt? Why would they be hurt?
I think that there are a lot of good reasons not to use the word “retard”. And there aren’t many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives. So I don’t use the word. And I do have the arrogance to think I’m right, and the gall to suggest that others should stop using the word too.
But for the record I have never advocated for censorship of the word “retard” in this conversation, or anywhere. I don’t think a fediverse instance or any media platform should just ban the word, or ban people for using it. I don’t think people should be silenced for it.
Even below the level of “control”, of authority figures or systems imposing changes from the top-down…
Even down to a personal level - I don’t think I advocate for people to censor themselves or each other. Please forgive me if I have done so here - that wasn’t my intention.
I just want people to be mindful of what they say. To understand what they’re saying, and why, and what impact it can have and what implications it carries. I don’t think the decisions I make about vocabulary are so severe as your question suggests.
I don’t think I’ll ever again find someone to go the distance with me on this topic as you have, and I thank you for that. But if I did? And they listened, and thought, and considered… and they walked away, still saying the word? I wouldn’t want them to lose their voice. I don’t think they should be censored. I might think they’re wrong to continue saying it, but I think a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things.
But I do have to say that I think a large part of this conversation unfortunately has boiled down to “who gets to decide?”.
You have a list of words in your mind that deserve to be abandoned. I’m fairly confident we could agree on all of them. But I’m not certain, because I don’t know your list. I only know my list. Most people only know their list. So I do need to argue against the implication that I have looser parameters from you because my list might be different. I may have added words to my list for different reasons than you added words to yours, but that’s not the same thing as having a lower threshold for what offends me. There are people who will add words to their lists that I won’t add to mine, and for reasons I won’t understand, and I don’t think they’re wrong for doing so.
That being said, you and I appear to be approaching some of the core concepts of linguistics here, and from different angles. You’ve joined me this far for this productive discussion, so I feel comfortable asking you to please follow me on one more twist of thought before we step away from ableism entirely -
How often do you call someone a cretin? The interesting thing about the euphemism treadmill is that we kept replacing the “official” words for the same definitions. We actively changed our clinical language each time. But until the treadmill stopped on “retard”… we didn’t actively stop using those words colloquially.
We struck them from the medical journals, but we didn’t strike them from the social vocabulary. The internet didn’t exist. People weren’t nearly so up in arms about ableism. You couldn’t censor the town square the way you can an online forum. We still use the word moron, and idiot. We even still use the word imbecile sometimes. It’s a fun word to say.
But how often do people use the word cretin? You might hear it in a particularly poetic roast, but not out loud. You’ll never hear someone say “oh, jennifer? She’s a cretin.”
(Edit-And I realize this might be a regional thing! Which adds a fun layer to all of this!)
Medical journals stopped using it because it became a derogatory term… but did we stop using it for that reason? Then why didn’t we stop using moron?
I take a descriptivist approach to language. I believe it is what it does. The only rules for how we talk to each other are the ones humans made up, and because of that language constantly evolves as we keep making shit up. And I don’t set the rules. Nobody does, because we all do. I decide what the language of the future will be as much as you do, which is to say probably not at all.
I don’t think we stopped using cretin for good reasons… I think we just stopped using it. I think we’ll just stop using a lot of words for no good reason, and so it’s not a very big leap from there for me to believe we can stop using a word for genuinely good reasons.
I think that we should try our best not to hurt people. And I think that we will hurt people anyway, no matter how hard we try. No matter our intentions. No matter the context. That’s one of the many curses of being the rising ape, and I agree with you - there is absolutely no way to break that curse. Something we do will offend someone somewhere, and that doesn’t mean we did a bad thing. But that also doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
I think that there are a lot of good reasons not to use the word “retard”. And there aren’t many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives.
I totally agree when it comes to any public discourse.
But how often do people use the word cretin?
Most people have no clue what that word means or how it originated. I certainly don’t use “cretin,” since I have no use for disparaging someone as diseased and crippled. Maybe that’s your point, that properly understanding the genesis of some term can undermine your desire to use it? And you’re right. Cretinism, the disease, makes me really sad, as does the fact that assholes chose to turn it into a pejorative. So maybe that has something to do with my unwillingness to ever use the word.
In my mind, “retard” was more of a vague diagnosis of mental slowness, so it makes it lessreal as an actual medical condition. Like when you say “retard” I think “Republican.” Those are the people who need diagnosing. Still, I’m less willing to use the r-word than alternatives like “idiot” whose meaning is totally divorced in my imagination from any origin story.
After all, once you use a word (a bunch of sounds) to mean something long enough, it eventually makes no difference what the word used to mean. That said, I can see your point. The cretin example is a good one. Very persuasive.
Maybe that’s your point, that properly understanding the genesis of some term can undermine your desire to use it? And you’re right.
Cretinism, the disease, makes me really sad, as does the fact that assholes chose to turn it into a pejorative. So maybe that has something to do with my unwillingness to ever use the word.
In my mind, “retard” was more of a vague diagnosis of mental slowness, so it makes it less real as an actual medical condition.
For me, the vagueness of the diagnosis is what makes me sad. To think of how many vulnerable people were left struggling for answers with very little help from that word and plenty of hurt from it for so long. Perhaps this makes it less concrete in the mind than a word with a more specific target, but no less sad to me. Cretinism makes me sad as well, and more so when I think about how many people could have easily avoided it if they just knew more about thyroids.
So yes, precisely! If people change how they feel and think, they change how they speak. Not just their internal dictionary, but the way they use their words too.
I appreciate your time, understanding, and well-reasoned discussion. Thank you!
That’s fair, we can step back from the intricacies of this particular word and return to first principles - and I agree, this is an important first principle to discuss. After all this time disagreeing, we may have come back around that big circle to find that we really agreed all along.
I don’t really think I advocate for a concerted effort to change the english language the way you imagine. I want people to change the way they think, not the way they talk. I think if they change the way they think, this will certainly change the way they talk. Not the other way around.
I try to invite people to take a look at the words we use as a vehicle for taking a look at the way we use them - the intentions and the context. Why do we use these words this way? What do they mean? Who can be hurt? Why would they be hurt?
I think that there are a lot of good reasons not to use the word “retard”. And there aren’t many good reasons to use it. I know of plenty of alternatives. So I don’t use the word. And I do have the arrogance to think I’m right, and the gall to suggest that others should stop using the word too.
But for the record I have never advocated for censorship of the word “retard” in this conversation, or anywhere. I don’t think a fediverse instance or any media platform should just ban the word, or ban people for using it. I don’t think people should be silenced for it.
Even below the level of “control”, of authority figures or systems imposing changes from the top-down…
Even down to a personal level - I don’t think I advocate for people to censor themselves or each other. Please forgive me if I have done so here - that wasn’t my intention.
I just want people to be mindful of what they say. To understand what they’re saying, and why, and what impact it can have and what implications it carries. I don’t think the decisions I make about vocabulary are so severe as your question suggests.
I don’t think I’ll ever again find someone to go the distance with me on this topic as you have, and I thank you for that. But if I did? And they listened, and thought, and considered… and they walked away, still saying the word? I wouldn’t want them to lose their voice. I don’t think they should be censored. I might think they’re wrong to continue saying it, but I think a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things.
But I do have to say that I think a large part of this conversation unfortunately has boiled down to “who gets to decide?”.
You have a list of words in your mind that deserve to be abandoned. I’m fairly confident we could agree on all of them. But I’m not certain, because I don’t know your list. I only know my list. Most people only know their list. So I do need to argue against the implication that I have looser parameters from you because my list might be different. I may have added words to my list for different reasons than you added words to yours, but that’s not the same thing as having a lower threshold for what offends me. There are people who will add words to their lists that I won’t add to mine, and for reasons I won’t understand, and I don’t think they’re wrong for doing so.
That being said, you and I appear to be approaching some of the core concepts of linguistics here, and from different angles. You’ve joined me this far for this productive discussion, so I feel comfortable asking you to please follow me on one more twist of thought before we step away from ableism entirely -
How often do you call someone a cretin? The interesting thing about the euphemism treadmill is that we kept replacing the “official” words for the same definitions. We actively changed our clinical language each time. But until the treadmill stopped on “retard”… we didn’t actively stop using those words colloquially.
We struck them from the medical journals, but we didn’t strike them from the social vocabulary. The internet didn’t exist. People weren’t nearly so up in arms about ableism. You couldn’t censor the town square the way you can an online forum. We still use the word moron, and idiot. We even still use the word imbecile sometimes. It’s a fun word to say.
But how often do people use the word cretin? You might hear it in a particularly poetic roast, but not out loud. You’ll never hear someone say “oh, jennifer? She’s a cretin.”
(Edit-And I realize this might be a regional thing! Which adds a fun layer to all of this!)
Medical journals stopped using it because it became a derogatory term… but did we stop using it for that reason? Then why didn’t we stop using moron?
I take a descriptivist approach to language. I believe it is what it does. The only rules for how we talk to each other are the ones humans made up, and because of that language constantly evolves as we keep making shit up. And I don’t set the rules. Nobody does, because we all do. I decide what the language of the future will be as much as you do, which is to say probably not at all.
I don’t think we stopped using cretin for good reasons… I think we just stopped using it. I think we’ll just stop using a lot of words for no good reason, and so it’s not a very big leap from there for me to believe we can stop using a word for genuinely good reasons.
I think that we should try our best not to hurt people. And I think that we will hurt people anyway, no matter how hard we try. No matter our intentions. No matter the context. That’s one of the many curses of being the rising ape, and I agree with you - there is absolutely no way to break that curse. Something we do will offend someone somewhere, and that doesn’t mean we did a bad thing. But that also doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
I totally agree when it comes to any public discourse.
Most people have no clue what that word means or how it originated. I certainly don’t use “cretin,” since I have no use for disparaging someone as diseased and crippled. Maybe that’s your point, that properly understanding the genesis of some term can undermine your desire to use it? And you’re right. Cretinism, the disease, makes me really sad, as does the fact that assholes chose to turn it into a pejorative. So maybe that has something to do with my unwillingness to ever use the word.
In my mind, “retard” was more of a vague diagnosis of mental slowness, so it makes it less real as an actual medical condition. Like when you say “retard” I think “Republican.” Those are the people who need diagnosing. Still, I’m less willing to use the r-word than alternatives like “idiot” whose meaning is totally divorced in my imagination from any origin story.
After all, once you use a word (a bunch of sounds) to mean something long enough, it eventually makes no difference what the word used to mean. That said, I can see your point. The cretin example is a good one. Very persuasive.
For me, the vagueness of the diagnosis is what makes me sad. To think of how many vulnerable people were left struggling for answers with very little help from that word and plenty of hurt from it for so long. Perhaps this makes it less concrete in the mind than a word with a more specific target, but no less sad to me. Cretinism makes me sad as well, and more so when I think about how many people could have easily avoided it if they just knew more about thyroids.
So yes, precisely! If people change how they feel and think, they change how they speak. Not just their internal dictionary, but the way they use their words too.
I appreciate your time, understanding, and well-reasoned discussion. Thank you!