What's the view on "bad" language

[Cthulhu.Science]

I don't know what you're getting at. When you call someone a retard you are debasing those with actual disabilities by using the term in the pejorative. Just like my gay example.


It doesn't really matter if spastic, dumb, bitch, etc have or had legitimate uses.

Firstly. since nobody is currently diagnosed as retarded I am not debasing anyone. As there are NO clinically "retarded" people on the planet. People who might have been or perhaps were diagnosed as retarded in 1953 now have a more precise diagnosis. exactly ZERO people have on their current medical records, "Retarded." And the developmentally challenged do not as a group call themselves retarded, or even include a subset that does.

Your example of "gay" is not a direct comparison since the term is currently used by a very large population to describe themselves.

Secondly. What I'm getting at is that there are a number of past (and even current) medical terms that are directed at able bodied people as negative descriptors that are acceptable to use. E.g. dumb, blind, lame, mute, moron, idiot, Imbecile -- are all acceptable. The last three were all "precise" terms used with the general term retarded in times past. I'm simply sad that retarded isn't among that illustrious group.

In fact it is even ok to refer to someone as "taking the short bus," and THAT is an ongoing American cultural phenomena that relates to a large number of developmentally challenged students who literally take a short yellow bus to school. While able body students take the large standard yellow bus seen in American TV shows & movies, American school districts use "short buses" to pick up developmentally challenged students separately from able bodied students. THAT is a current pejorative toward all students that have had to and currently do take short buses across the United States. And it is often used very specifically to insult that group and include the object of the insult among that group as in, "you took the short bus to school, didn't you?" or some version thereof. The phrase is ok in the social sense that you're less likely to receive rebuke for using this phrase than the word, "retarded."

Below is the modern scale that nobody below "average" IQ uses to classify themselves. --Really not many people at all. Note the lack of the word "retarded." And this scale is itself outdated by the "many types of intelligence" model.

 

[Swank]

Firstly. since nobody is currently diagnosed as retarded I am not debasing anyone. As there are NO clinically "retarded" people on the planet. People who might have been or perhaps were diagnosed as retarded in 1953 now have a more precise diagnosis. exactly ZERO people have on their current medical records, "Retarded." And the developmentally challenged do not as a group call themselves retarded, or even include a subset that does.

Your example of "gay" is not a direct comparison since the term is currently used by a very large population to describe themselves.

Secondly. What I'm getting at is that there are a number of past (and even current) medical terms that are directed at able bodied people as negative descriptors that are acceptable to use. E.g. dumb, blind, lame, mute, moron, idiot, Imbecile -- are all acceptable. The last three were all "precise" terms used with the general term retarded in times past. I'm simply sad that retarded isn't among that illustrious group.

In fact it is even ok to refer to someone as "taking the short bus," and THAT is an ongoing American cultural phenomena that relates to a large number of developmentally challenged students who literally take a short yellow bus to school. While able body students take the large standard yellow bus seen in American TV shows & movies, American school districts use "short buses" to pick up developmentally challenged students separately from able bodied students. THAT is a current pejorative toward all students that have had to and currently do take short buses across the United States. And it is often used very specifically to insult that group and include the object of the insult among that group as in, "you took the short bus to school, didn't you?" or some version thereof. That is it is ok in the social sense that you're less likely to receive rebuke for using this phrase than the word, "retarded."

Below is the modern scale that nobody below "average" IQ uses to classify themselves. --Really not many people at all. Note the lack of the word "retarded." And this scale is itself outdated by the "many types of intelligence" model.

View attachment 120243

As a debate technique, you are guilty of the "whatabout" argument. The short bus joke is not polite either, even if it isn't considered as rude.

And then pretending that people don't know what retarded meant simply because it disappeared from medical books? C'mon. Either you think everyone is stupid, or I am.

 

[Harpo]

Not polite?

*checks thread title*

Being polite can eff off

 

[Swank]

Not polite?

*checks thread title*

Being polite can eff off

More like "bad" vs "hate crime".

 

[Harpo]

Hat. Hat. Hat.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

As a debate technique, you are guilty of the "whatabout" argument. The short bus joke is not polite either, even if it isn't considered as rude.

And then pretending that people don't know what retarded meant simply because it disappeared from medical books? C'mon. Either you think everyone is stupid, or I am.

I accept that I haven't written my argument in a manner that you understand my point, but what you wrote is not my point. Or perhaps you are simply guilty of "Aggressive Misunderstanding." No set of words will satisfy your refusal to understand what I'm writing.

For the other readers of this blog I'll expand upon my point.

My point is that there are many specific clinical terms with precise meanings that are used as insulting descriptors that are perfectly OK to use. And I think that "Retarded" should be among these terms. I even offered a few examples:

E.g. dumb, blind, lame, mute, moron, idiot, Imbecile -- are all acceptable.

It isn't that people do not understand what blind means or don't understand that there are people who are blind. Yet it is perfectly ok to say to someone, "Are you blind? it's right in front of you!" This is not an insult to blind people anywhere.

When you call someone an idiot everyone knows that you are suggesting, as an insult, that they have below average intelligence. This is understood and accepted. That is the point of the insult. It is not an insult to all people who have extremely low intelligence.

There is NO point in calling someone or an action retarded if the person you are speaking to does not understand what is meant by retarded. Clinically speaking, "Levels of retardation" once described the scale of below average intelligence that has now been replaced by the phrase "impaired or delayed." (see table in my prior post) The terms idiot (0-25 IQ), imbecile (26-50 IQ) and moron (51-70 IQ) were specific stops on the IQ scale. Most people won't know that etymology. Even still most people will recognize the insult as being something a little different and more nuanced than the term "stupid." Maybe because the clinical definition of retarded involves nuance. There are work arounds to replace the word retarded. How about, "That action was poorly considered." Or "that was stupid." or lots of other phrases, but I think the term "retarded," like so many words, has a special specific meaning that is lost when the word is banned from common usage.

 

[Swank]

I accept that I haven't written my argument in a manner that you understand my point, but what you wrote is not my point. Or perhaps you are simply guilty of "Aggressive Misunderstanding." No set of words will satisfy your refusal to understand what I'm writing.

For the other readers of this blog I'll expand upon my point.

My point is that there are many specific clinical terms with precise meanings that are used as insulting descriptors that are perfectly OK to use. And I think that "Retarded" should be among these terms. I even offered a few examples:


It isn't that people do not understand what blind means or don't understand that there are people who are blind. Yet it is perfectly ok to say to someone, "Are you blind? it's right in front of you!" This is not an insult to blind people anywhere.

When you call someone an idiot everyone knows that you are suggesting, as an insult, that they have below average intelligence. This is understood and accepted. That is the point of the insult. It is not an insult to all people who have extremely low intelligence.

There is NO point in calling someone or an action retarded if the person you are speaking to does not understand what is meant by retarded. Clinically speaking, "Levels of retardation" once described the scale of below average intelligence that has now been replaced by the phrase "impaired or delayed." (see table in my prior post) The terms idiot (0-25 IQ), imbecile (26-50 IQ) and moron (51-70 IQ) were specific stops on the IQ scale. Most people won't know that etymology. Even still most people will recognize the insult as being something a little different and more nuanced than the term "stupid." Maybe because the clinical definition of retarded involves nuance. There are work arounds to replace the word retarded. How about, "That action was poorly considered." Or "that was stupid." or lots of other phrases, but I think the term "retarded," like so many words, has a special specific meaning that is lost when the word is banned from common usage.

No, you're just missing the context of the words you're describing. "Moron" stopped being a word understood by the public as having a medical definition in the early 20th century - shortly after it started to be used as a general insult in 1922. The people that remember that are long gone. All we have left is the insult. That wasn't a choice anyone made.

In contrast, "mental retardation" was a polite medical-sounding term for people with things like Down's Syndrome well into the 1980s at least, so many of us have a clear memory of its "proper" use and the rise of the insult version.

Aside from the lack of time passing, "retard" also evolved as a insult after the invention of political correct terminology - something "moron" never had to contend with. So the social awareness we all have from PC means that 'retarded' will never enjoy that long honeymoon of insult use without the attached stigma of being vaguely hateful that 'imbecile' received.

So without the uninhibited joy that folks used 'moron' with for 100 years, 'retard' is forever retarded in its development as an insult. We generally use language in a more responsible way - or with greater disapproval - than our forebears.




Your objections to the way 'retard' is not evolving speaks to a misunderstanding of how word change meaning in their social context. It isn't because they get taken out of the DSM and are suddenly available on the open nomenclature market. I'm afraid the days of converting terms for ethnicity, wife beating, disabilities or even sexual preferences into crowd pleasing insults might be over.

 

[Harpo]

Combining fragments from the last two posts:
“That action was poorly considered” / the invention of politically correct terminology

Poorly Considered = PC

Checking the acronymfinder website, I see that PC has over 300 meanings, including “Piece of Crap”

 

[Toby Frost]

The meaning of words changes naturally: virtually nobody would use "nice" to mean "precise" these days. Add to that that any term for intellectual disability will inevitably end up used as a playground insult because children are like that, meaning that such terms will inevitably have to be changed every so often to stop the medical term becoming an insult. If everyone else says that "nice" now means "pleasant" and not "precise", the fact that I sincerely believe it does and should mean "precise" doesn't really matter.

A while back I was talking to an old person who went off on a "You can't say anything these days" rant with regard to blacks and Pakistanis. Another person nearby said "But those words are insults. Even if you think or pretend that they're not, that's what they are. Why would you want to insult people by using them?"

Anyhow, here's Fry and Laurie and their garden, which is looking very homosexual today.

 

[Astro Pen]

I think I'm going to say this and risk the flak. Conversation in books is nothing like conversation in the real world. And nor should it be.
If it were books would be unreadable.
Real dialogue, that mess of talking over each other, ums, ah's, f'ing every time you can't come up with a profound adjective, is not captivating when written verbatim.
This is particularly true for any "exchange of ideas" conversation. They don't happen, nobody changes their mind or, lets be honest, even listens. They just railroad their position and ego at each other.
Dialogue in stories is to share information which moves the plot forward. Real conversation rarely has a plot at all. Next time you have a conversation with someone at the bus stop or supermarket queue try to think of it on the written page. Banal doesn't even begin to describe it, Football, a politician on the telly the other night and the price of things now.
No don't struggle to make it "real". Write in character, of course, but keep it neat, structured and advance your plot.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think I'm going to say this and risk the flak. Conversation in books is nothing like conversation in the real world. And nor should it be.
If it were books would be unreadable.
Real dialogue, that mess of talking over each other, ums, ah's, f'ing every time you can't come up with a profound adjective, is not captivating when written verbatim.
This is particularly true for any "exchange of ideas" conversation. They don't happen, nobody changes their mind or, lets be honest, even listens. They just railroad their position and ego at each other.
Dialogue in stories is to share information which moves the plot forward. Real conversation rarely has a plot at all. Next time you have a conversation with someone at the bus stop or supermarket queue try to think of it on the written page. Banal doesn't even begin to describe it, Football, a politician on the telly the other night and the price of things now.
No don't struggle to make it "real". Write in character, of course, but keep it neat, structured and advance your plot.

I've mentioned similar on othrr threads. People don't talk in 'real life' like they do in books, tv or movies. People don't have conversations in books like they do on tv or in movies. Each media has its own way of dealing with plot and dialogue.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

No, you're just missing the context of the words you're describing. "Moron" stopped being a word understood by the public as having a medical definition in the early 20th century - shortly after it started to be used as a general insult in 1922. The people that remember that are long gone. All we have left is the insult. That wasn't a choice anyone made.

In contrast, "mental retardation" was a polite medical-sounding term for people with things like Down's Syndrome well into the 1980s at least, so many of us have a clear memory of its "proper" use and the rise of the insult version.

Aside from the lack of time passing, "retard" also evolved as a insult after the invention of political correct terminology - something "moron" never had to contend with. So the social awareness we all have from PC means that 'retarded' will never enjoy that long honeymoon of insult use without the attached stigma of being vaguely hateful that 'imbecile' received.

So without the uninhibited joy that folks used 'moron' with for 100 years, 'retard' is forever retarded in its development as an insult. We generally use language in a more responsible way - or with greater disapproval - than our forebears.




Your objections to the way 'retard' is not evolving speaks to a misunderstanding of how word change meaning in their social context. It isn't because they get taken out of the DSM and are suddenly available on the open nomenclature market. I'm afraid the days of converting terms for ethnicity, wife beating, disabilities or even sexual preferences into crowd pleasing insults might be over.

My thesis is simple. I think the word retarded as an insult toward able-bodied people has nuance that other words don't have. I'm sad to see the word removed from polite society.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

No, you're just missing the context of the words you're describing. "Moron" stopped being a word understood by the public as having a medical definition in the early 20th century - shortly after it started to be used as a general insult in 1922. The people that remember that are long gone. All we have left is the insult. That wasn't a choice anyone made.

In contrast, "mental retardation" was a polite medical-sounding term for people with things like Down's Syndrome well into the 1980s at least, so many of us have a clear memory of its "proper" use and the rise of the insult version.

Aside from the lack of time passing, "retard" also evolved as a insult after the invention of political correct terminology - something "moron" never had to contend with. So the social awareness we all have from PC means that 'retarded' will never enjoy that long honeymoon of insult use without the attached stigma of being vaguely hateful that 'imbecile' received.

So without the uninhibited joy that folks used 'moron' with for 100 years, 'retard' is forever retarded in its development as an insult. We generally use language in a more responsible way - or with greater disapproval - than our forebears.




Your objections to the way 'retard' is not evolving speaks to a misunderstanding of how word change meaning in their social context. It isn't because they get taken out of the DSM and are suddenly available on the open nomenclature market. I'm afraid the days of converting terms for ethnicity, wife beating, disabilities or even sexual preferences into crowd pleasing insults might be over.

According to this, the Special Olympics has led the charge to remove the word from common usage.

Global Downs Syndrome Cabal

Words Can Hurt​

Everyone knows words can hurt. For people with Down syndrome and their families, the history of “labels” is not a pleasant one. People with Down syndrome used to be labeled “idiots, morons,” and “imbeciles” by both society and the medical profession. The label evolved into “Mongoloid, handicapped, mentally retarded, retarded,” and then for short, “retard.”

Today, these labels are considered politically incorrect, hurtful and dehumanizing. As award-winning actor, parent-advocate, and Global Down Syndrome Foundation International Spokesperson, John C. McGinley has said, there is no difference between derogatory words used to label ethnic or religious minorities and the words used to label people with Down syndrome. As with people advocating for ethnic or religious minorities, there is a movement (led by Special Olympics) to end the use of derogatory words such as the “R” word – ‘retard.’ You can join the movement or learn more by clicking here.

What Words Should We Use?​

Renowned educator and inclusion specialist Patti McVay emphasizes “the best name to call someone is the name he or she was born with.” Many organizations, including the federal government and the National Institutes of Health, have gone back to scrub their old records of the word “mentally retarded” and have replaced it with “intellectually and developmentally disabled,” with the acronym of IDD. Other organizations are using cognitive disability, intellectual disability, or developmental disability. Still others use the word “challenged” instead of disability. There are subtle differences in the definitions based on each organization and even by state, but most importantly any of these terms are accepted as appropriate by the community being defined. For the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, we like to take it a step further and talk about our community as “differently-abled.”

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Next time you have a conversation with someone at the bus stop or supermarket queue try to think of it on the written page. Banal doesn't even begin to describe it, Football, a politician on the telly the other night and the price of things now.

To add the next step. Consider the last "discussion" you had with someone or a group of people you know well. Even one --- Especially one --- where you and the person mostly agreed and were simply expanding on the topic. (perhaps football or politicians) Think about putting that on the page and whether that would be readable.

OR, the last work meeting you attended. One where the theoretic point of the meeting was to communicate ideas to move a project forward.

Imagine the book where the author wrote the scene where everyone got together to plan the (____activity____). Now imagine that scene written like a typical work meeting. Frankly, it could be hilarious. But it would definitely be a lot different than anything written to date.

 

[ColGray]

You can't say anything these days" rant with regard to blacks and Pakistanis.

Yeah! And what about those, those, those <non-white-male physically identifiable group> and why can't I comment on their <insulting stereotype based on applying an able bodied white male perspective to them>! Back in my day...

Every one of those rants comes off like 16th century Catholic priests lamenting and deriding the idea that the earth isn't the center of the universe and will age roughly as well.

You can't say anything about the celestial spheres these days without getting shouted down! It's all, that's orbital mechanics not pinpricks of divine light. Heliocentrism? Thanks Galileo Culture.

 

[Cthulhu.Science]

Demetri Martin on Rainbows

 

[HareBrain]

You know what, I think we should never have wiped out Neanderthals. Surely not even the most pantywaist social arbiters could have had an issue with us insulting another species, with their flowery funerals and their peace-loving natures?

 

[ColGray]

People don't talk in 'real life' like they do in books, tv or movies. People don't have conversations in books like they do on tv or in movies. Each media has its own way of dealing with plot and dialogue.

And even writers within those mediums have wildly different styles. With screen writing,

--Sorkin and Tarantino write dialogue as hyper-stylized ping pong matched. There's a tight rhythm and beat and word selection is precise. But even between these two, the styles are very different (and talk about using cuss words!)
--- Mamet writes dialogue as character. Each person has a different cadence and word choice. In Glengary Glenross, the audience hears Ricky Roma talk on the phone. Only his side of the conversation. It comes late in the play, but it condenses the character into 30 seconds
--Noah Baumbauch writes the most realistic dialogue --people talking over and passed one another constantly. There are often multiple characters speaking at once (which is impossible in a written work) and people often begin one sentence before the prior one ends. It's very engaging and the verisimilitude lulls the viewer into a sense of being a nearby observer overhearing this conversation.

They all work. They're all interesting. They're all different.

 

[KiraAnn]

A couple of weeks ago, I encountered some words I had never heard before. I'm not repeating them as they are racist slang terms from the early 30's and were casually tossed around by several characters.

But, what surprised me was the book they were in: the first Nero Wolfe novel from 1934. I've read a lot of books from that era, and had never encountered those before.

 

[The Big Peat]

Regarding the idea that fictional dialogue doesn't resemble real dialogue, I'm going to say what I often find myself saying these days when people talk about realism in stories...

Reality is a big place.

No, fictional dialogue doesn't resemble the conversations you'll hear most often.

But it does often resemble conversations - and also voices - you'll hear and have. It does and it should. Conversations that sound completely, totally detached kill a story quick. Conversations that sound very true can boost a story a lot, particularly if they touch things the reader knows.

It is also a sliding scale. Some writers are obviously glitzing it up. Some are deliberately trying to capture as much reality as possible. There's nothing wrong with aiming to be in the latter.