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Post by sungod on Feb 16, 2023 13:39:33 GMT -5
I have recently seen more discussion in public forums about disability-inclusive language, both by PWD and supportive AB. Personally, there are a couple of words that make me cringe, but because they have a cringey tone, not because I'm offended. An example is crip/cripple. How do you all feel about the need for examples of language replacement below?
Instead of “suffering from” say “living with (a disability or diagnosis)”
Instead of “able-bodied" say “person/people without disabilities”
Instead of “the disabled/differently-abled/special needs” say “person/people with disability/disabilities”
Instead of “wheelchair-bound/confined to a wheelchair” say “uses a wheelchair, is a wheelchair user”
Instead of “is handicapped” say “has a disability”
Instead of “visually impaired” say “a person who is blind/legally blind/has low vision”
Instead of “hearing impaired” say “Deaf (the community), deaf (audiological status), partial hearing loss, or hard of hearing”
Instead of “dumb/slow learner/retarded” say “has a learning/intellectual disability”
Instead of “physically challenged/person with physical limitations” say “person with a physical/mobility disability”
Instead of “lame, crippled, cripple (to describe objects/ activities)” say “a problematic webinar, a malware-infected system”
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Post by mnquad07 on Feb 16, 2023 13:57:26 GMT -5
the only one I agree with is the stupid/retard one, unless you are working on a car engine. I constantly call myself a "gimp" among other things. Putting restrictions on this makes "normal" people uneasy and hesitant around those with disabilities and whatnot. "Am I saying the right thing? I don't want to cross the line" you know? How are they ever going to learn? Without being comfortable enough to ask questions and whatnot? Yes, sometimes the way we do and say things have to change as we progress as people but sometimes it gets a little out of control.
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wheelsthrowaway1989
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Post by wheelsthrowaway1989 on Feb 16, 2023 14:00:08 GMT -5
I can't say I've ever been personally offended by any of these terms. It's different for everybody obviously. I can only speak about the ones regarding physical disability, but I don't think it matters for me personally. I even joke about my disability all the time, I don't care if others do too. It would only offend me if words were deliberately being used in a derogatory way.
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Post by Braced4Impact on Feb 16, 2023 14:01:19 GMT -5
I personally don't care. I use gimpy and cripple. I think we're spending too much time on worrying about offending each other and not actually communicating. If we think about our words so carefully that we focus on them instead of what we want to say, what we want to say gets lost in the editing and communication doesn't happen. If someone is petrified of saying the wrong thing, they won't be able to think freely and naturally, and I'd rather not have the conversation at all. That's what this gimpy cripple thinks, at least.
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nick1439
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Post by nick1439 on Feb 16, 2023 14:23:14 GMT -5
I could go both ways on this, but honestly, as long as you're not being derogatory or just plain obtuse, I don't see much need for overly inclusive language. Terminology comes from perspective a lot of the time, and sometimes the perspective is ignorance.
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Post by ayla on Feb 16, 2023 14:38:45 GMT -5
I echo the feeling that we, as a society, are placing too much emphasis on terminology and labeling...and this is coming from someone obsessed with language and linguistics. I absolutely think words matter, but excessive hand-wringing about what language to use shuts down actual conversation and interaction. It places the focus on discussions *about* other groups, rather than discussions *with* people from other groups. After all, I don't need to ponder whether to call my friend "disabled" or "a person with a disability" when I'm talking to him...I'd just use his name or pronoun. Plus, disability isn't a monolith. We'll never find wording that works for everyone. If an individual person strongly prefers to be referred to as disabled vs. having a disability vs. whatever terminology, it's their right to have a preference -- and it's courteous (though not obligatory, in my opinion) for others to try to remember their preference. I think it's akin to gendered pronouns or labels (stewardess vs. flight attendant). By all means let's strive to be inclusive and considerate of others but let's also try to be tolerant and flexible with one another. I was recently in a conversation at a reunion where an elderly gay man was respectfully referring to a younger trans person (not present at the time) by the wrong pronoun (e.g. "he's a woman now"), and a younger cishet woman was aggressively correcting him on it. I was sort of aghast that this woman felt the need to focus on the pronoun rather than the fact that the man she was scolding obviously had decades of LGBT experience over her, and was communicating acceptance and support for the trans woman in question despite his pronoun choice. I took a little tangent here but I think if we want to have meaningful conversations about disability, and have disability included casually in all spheres of life, we need to be less precious about our labels. Look, I sure don't like the label "devotee" but if it gives me an inroad to the community I'll take it.
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Post by Braced4Impact on Feb 16, 2023 14:38:54 GMT -5
I have a malware-infected body
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Post by newjess on Feb 16, 2023 15:09:58 GMT -5
Great post! I think one good thing that comes out of this type of language evolution is that being more intentional about our language also encourages our brains to think more critically/deeply about things that may just be so ingrained in our minds that we don't ever challenge them or evaluate them.
I agree too that it also can sometimes detract from the actual issues at hand, especially when the two extremes make it more about their ego (the side that gets bothered by any mention of language evolving/anti "PC culture", etc and the side that takes correcting others and policing language way too far as well).
As others have mentioned, there is also the fact that sometimes there just won't be any one right answer. Some folks in the autism community prefer to be referred to as autistic, others prefer person first language.
At the end of the day, I think regularly challenging our belief systems and intentionally thinking about the words we use is good thing. Sometimes I get uncomfortable when I make a mistake or am corrected, but I've been trying to make it less about my ego and more about what I can learn and how I can grow from it (I'm not perfect at this by any means but, work in progress).
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Post by Dani on Feb 16, 2023 15:41:24 GMT -5
100 % ayla The one word I don't like being used by many teens is "retarded", it always bothered me that the kids throw it around like that. I don't know why. But I also don't like that the f...word has become normal and I don't like when people use it like normal in everyday conversation. For me it's still a strong word that I would only use if I'm super angry, sad, or disappointed. I also don't like the word "handicapped" for some reason, it makes no sense to me...I don't understand where it's rooted...like hands, caps...Idk But I agree, sometimes it's too much emphasis on addressing everything/everyone the right way. For example, I think it's a great thing when a transgender person I meet introduces themselves and adds how they want to be addressed. It then doesn't make me guess and I will make it a point to address them in their preferred way. I also think we need to not be too hard on each other with these things. The majority of people don't mean anything derogatory and sometimes we make mistakes. I used to work with someone who changed their gender and I witnessed the transformation from female to male. After the surgeries and treatments I by mistake addressed him as female on occasion but it was never an issue because my coworker also understood that everyone had to get used to it and eventually we did get used to it.
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Post by someonerandom on Feb 16, 2023 15:51:17 GMT -5
I like all of the replacements made in the OP. I especially don’t like “suffering from” or “wheelchair bound”. I call myself a cripple with friends/family, or just say I use a wheelchair or am paraplegic with non-friends. I think the euphemism treadmill provides good exercise, even if it doesn’t ultimately take us anywhere.
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Post by someonerandom on Feb 16, 2023 15:53:50 GMT -5
Oh, and I really don’t like it when people say shit like “crippled by fear”.
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Post by ayla on Feb 16, 2023 16:01:57 GMT -5
Here's a spicy take, that maybe belongs in the other thread: as a millennial I deeply miss being able to call things "retarded." Oh, it was such a satisfying word!! It really packed the punch that was missing in its offensive predecessors: moronic, idiotic, lame, etc. The PC replacements are even more milquetoast. To say that something "doesn't make sense" or is uninformed, ignorant, baseless, ridiculous, wrongheaded, asinine...? I'm sorry but that's corporate-email-speak. I don't want to sound erudite in my assessment of something, bringing in vocabulary like that. When someone's bullshit idea is truly heinously wrong, to me (at least internally) it will always be fucking retarded.
By all means we should not be using that term for anyone with an intellectual disability. It's a coarse word, to be sure, but sometimes we need coarse words to get a coarse tone across. And I personally think that if we were able to keep using "retarded" in the sense that I've defined it above, its previously association with "mental retardation" would slip away over time as it has with words like moron and idiot, which used to be specifically associated with point ranges on an IQ test. I think most young people today would be surprised to know what "lame" meant before it meant "uncool." It should be the same way with retarded.
Edited to clarify: I'm not willing to die on this hill, I have adjusted with the times and no longer use this word (and probably won't in the future) but internally I do really miss it and think we didn't need to completely yeet it from our lexicon :(
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Post by ayla on Feb 16, 2023 17:07:59 GMT -5
scarletfire as a youth I also used to call many a thing "gay" which I now really cringe at, but it is what it is. I think the difference between "gay" and "retarded" is the gay has been completely reclaimed by the in-group. It's right there in LGBT, Gay Rights...it has fully replaced homosexual. That's why in my mind it can no longer be used in the old pejorative sense without sounding confusing. However, those with intellectual disabilities are continuing to move away from and condemn "the R word."
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Post by Dani on Feb 16, 2023 17:30:29 GMT -5
Interesting take on the "r-word" ayla and I thought about this some more. Maybe there is a difference in age groups or what language we grew up with. English is basically my second language, though I have a good handle on it, but I don't think a similar word to "retarded" existed in my German vocabulary, at least I can't think of anything. I also only know the word "behindert" for disabled and not too many other expressions. But I've also been living around English for the majority of my life. Also when we grew up, saying the "F-word" out loud was unthinkable and we would have never used it, and if we did it was like super bad. Like I think my parents would have smacked me over the mouth if I would have said that.
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Post by Armus on Feb 16, 2023 19:01:55 GMT -5
personally i like the push for more inclusive language, mostly just because i think its a good thing for people to think more about the things they say, what they mean, and how/why they affect others. you can't divorce language from its larger cultural context and pretending that you can is pretty foolish.
i think sometimes this stuff can turn into purity testing/virtue signaling though which is extremely unhelpful and misses the point entirely.
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