Shunt
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- Posted: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:53:11 +0000
Yes, please do.
My special differently-abled darling!
Yes, the above sentence is becoming a hip sentence with middle aged God-fearing American soccer-mums. New words seem to be replacing old ones when it comes to disabilities – especially mental ones. Well now, we all know that “cripple� is now more an insult than a description of a condition. No mother would call their own child “crippled� anymore, even if it’s the truth. Same case with the word “Moron�. “With special needs� and “unique� are now replacing “disabled� and “incapable of doing…� Why? Political correctness? Why change words that so perfectly describe the truth, and play a game of “beat around the bush with implications�? Because, as mentioned before, many of the commonly used descriptive words have mutated into insults. Nobody wants to be moronic, or crippled. These types of people are stereotypically perceived as weak, stupid, incapable - not very nice things to be. Some very smart person came to the conclusion that the use of different, less specific words will get rid of this problem. “differently abled� replaces “disabled�, “special� replaces “incapable� (usually), “unique needs� replaces “incapable, dependant�.
But then something went wrong. Terribly wrong. Somebody forgot to reflect for a second why the words that are now being replaced mutated into negative rather than descriptive attributes. Simple answer… it’s the state of the person usually described with these words. Now, would it make much sense then to replace the word, when the condition is not replaced? Will the vicious circle not start again? Guess what… it’s starting again. Healthy Sammy don’t wanna be “special� no more, and healthy Cindy don’t wanna be “unique�. Isn’t being unique and special just great? Not since these terms are, quite obviously being taken over by people describing their disabled children/siblings/relatives/friends. I wouldn’t like to be called “special� or “unique� myself anymore (I’m quite obviously unique – just like everyone else is). Random people I have talked to on the internet agree that these words definitely remind them more of disability than of anything else. They state that if they were crippled, they’d prefer to be called that word, because it’s plain and simply the truth, instead of having someone bite their way out of it by using politically correct terms implying the condition. They agreed with me, stating that if someone told them that they were special, the first thought they’d have is “but I’m not disabled, Goddarn�! Through this new political correctness innocent terms are being whored, resulting in the creation of new swearwords conveying the exact same insult. This plan backfires, and the use of these new terms is basically useless. Once you start using a term, any term, to refer to a marred person, the term (however vague or positive) promptly transforms into a swearword when used against a “healthy� person, simply because the attributes associated with this word change and the more people use these terms to replace the old ones, the more people are aware of this change, the more these words will be associated almost exclusively with disabled people, and used in the usual way against people who are not disabled – as insults. I have actually heard the phrase “wow, we’re being unique today� on a message board, when the user of this phrase wanted to tell another of his stupidity. See? It’s already happening. The persons who came up with these superfluous and ridiculously stupid terms to replace the old ones must be gnashing their teeth. “I have replaced words solely describing specific attributes with general terms that can be used flexibly, where did I go wrong? How could this happen�? Well, after all this you’ll be able to make out where you went wrong. Here’s what I have to say to you who use these new terms thinking you’re well off the insolence hook: You fail.
3nodding
My special differently-abled darling!
Yes, the above sentence is becoming a hip sentence with middle aged God-fearing American soccer-mums. New words seem to be replacing old ones when it comes to disabilities – especially mental ones. Well now, we all know that “cripple� is now more an insult than a description of a condition. No mother would call their own child “crippled� anymore, even if it’s the truth. Same case with the word “Moron�. “With special needs� and “unique� are now replacing “disabled� and “incapable of doing…� Why? Political correctness? Why change words that so perfectly describe the truth, and play a game of “beat around the bush with implications�? Because, as mentioned before, many of the commonly used descriptive words have mutated into insults. Nobody wants to be moronic, or crippled. These types of people are stereotypically perceived as weak, stupid, incapable - not very nice things to be. Some very smart person came to the conclusion that the use of different, less specific words will get rid of this problem. “differently abled� replaces “disabled�, “special� replaces “incapable� (usually), “unique needs� replaces “incapable, dependant�.
But then something went wrong. Terribly wrong. Somebody forgot to reflect for a second why the words that are now being replaced mutated into negative rather than descriptive attributes. Simple answer… it’s the state of the person usually described with these words. Now, would it make much sense then to replace the word, when the condition is not replaced? Will the vicious circle not start again? Guess what… it’s starting again. Healthy Sammy don’t wanna be “special� no more, and healthy Cindy don’t wanna be “unique�. Isn’t being unique and special just great? Not since these terms are, quite obviously being taken over by people describing their disabled children/siblings/relatives/friends. I wouldn’t like to be called “special� or “unique� myself anymore (I’m quite obviously unique – just like everyone else is). Random people I have talked to on the internet agree that these words definitely remind them more of disability than of anything else. They state that if they were crippled, they’d prefer to be called that word, because it’s plain and simply the truth, instead of having someone bite their way out of it by using politically correct terms implying the condition. They agreed with me, stating that if someone told them that they were special, the first thought they’d have is “but I’m not disabled, Goddarn�! Through this new political correctness innocent terms are being whored, resulting in the creation of new swearwords conveying the exact same insult. This plan backfires, and the use of these new terms is basically useless. Once you start using a term, any term, to refer to a marred person, the term (however vague or positive) promptly transforms into a swearword when used against a “healthy� person, simply because the attributes associated with this word change and the more people use these terms to replace the old ones, the more people are aware of this change, the more these words will be associated almost exclusively with disabled people, and used in the usual way against people who are not disabled – as insults. I have actually heard the phrase “wow, we’re being unique today� on a message board, when the user of this phrase wanted to tell another of his stupidity. See? It’s already happening. The persons who came up with these superfluous and ridiculously stupid terms to replace the old ones must be gnashing their teeth. “I have replaced words solely describing specific attributes with general terms that can be used flexibly, where did I go wrong? How could this happen�? Well, after all this you’ll be able to make out where you went wrong. Here’s what I have to say to you who use these new terms thinking you’re well off the insolence hook: You fail.
3nodding
