Shirts That Go Hard

Insisting that people speak a certain way is like insisting that women wear dresses. It's so fundamentalist

Spoken like a true neurodivergent.

No cap, fr fr!

The Euphemism Treadmill might stop when the term is so clinically dry as "mentally disabled". It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue of a schoolyard bully the way "retarded" does. I dunno, we'll see.

Culture evolves. I will say, some of the new terms drive me nuts because they technically mean the same thing, but are grammatically awkward or are otherwise clunky when conveying the same message.

Like sure, I technically have a disability, please don't try to frame it as a good thing or something to make it sound better. It just sounds condescending. I don't need pity, I'm living my life to the fullest now :P

Reminds me of the slow children signs around neighborhoods. Every time my brain thinks... Are the kids to slow to get out of the way, or are they to mentally slow to know to not play in traffic. Then I remember I'm to mentally slow to realize it's me who is supposed to slow for the children but there is no punctuation so I just chuckle.

Actually I wonder if my neighbors would like it if I put this sign out front

The euphemism treadmill sure is differently abled

Here's my random two cents about disability euphemisms.

I personally think "special", which was pretty popular like 10 years ago, was/is pretty demeaning. Even the more recent "differently-abled" feels weird.

I think the plain language of "disability", which seems to have been around quite a while now, is fine. It's what is says on the tin, without judgement.

In the latest Diagnostic and Statistics Manual (DSM-5-TR), intellectual disability is the term that replaces mental retardation meaning mentally slow or delayed. Before mental retardation, it was mental deficiency implying there was something inferior. To me, there's no real difference between mental deficiency and intellectual disability. They are synonymous. Before the first DSM, a prominent doctor in the field of intelligence created a tiered system of intelligence that applied the labels moron, imbecile, and idiot (ordered higher to lower intelligence). Those words became derogatory too. The issue is not that scientists can't guess the correct term that wont become an insult.

The issue is that society defines values for people which allows terms to be insults. As long as oppression exists, the vulnerable will fall victim to it. The disabled, by definition, will always be part of the vulnerable group. Additionally, oppression is always justified by arguments on who deserves what, whether it be religion, race, sex, social class, work ethic, or intelligence. As long as we hold the value that inequitable distribution is not only acceptable but the ultimate goal of a just society, then regardless of the rules we establish, however noble or virtuous, the disabled will always be part of the oppressed, and thus, the terms for lower intelligence will continually evolve from neutral to derogatory.

I read this in a Werner Hertzog voice

The deaf seem to own it. They made up their own language and ableism can't do shit.

But that is the only exception I can think of. (And they are really independent).

It's hard to fully explain how the reception of words change to people who haven't seen it first-hand.

Even some bad words, which might be incredibly rude to say today, didn't have the same oomph in the past, so while the definition technically might not have changed, the intended severity of it has.

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