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micky micky is offline
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Default What words or phrases annoy you?

In alt.home.repair, on Fri, 11 Jun 2021 19:58:01 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 6/11/2021 6:24 PM, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 6/11/21 4:50 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:


Those terms are useful. What other term would you use that is better ?

I also get annoyed with a gradual change to the names of organisations
for blind people calling themselves. Vision Australia, or London
Vision, or Vision foundation etc,* Vision loss is fine, but these
organisations sound like some kind of hippy think tank, not a charity
to help blind people, what is wrong with blind, or vision loss or
partially sighted??

Too long.

You get the same problem with disabled, the worst of the fools don?t
like
to admit that they are disabled and use other silly terms.

It's not the disabled who wantb other terms. It's those who "feel"
for them.


Yes, the world is a better place since we no longer have retarded or


Of course retarded was a gentle word when it was first used. It meant
that it took them longer to do something, as in the first meaning of the
word retard at dictionary.com, "to make slow; delay the development or
progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede." But as with
handicapped, it implied that they would finish, just later than others.
Unfortunately, maybe, this choice of words didn't fool onlookers when it
came to those who were so retarded that they never learned certain
things. Plus there are the nasty people who used it as insult. So the
word fell out of favor.

It reminds me of some of the words for prison. Reformatory, a place
where the person will be reformed. Penitentiary, a place where he will
do penitence (and maybe penance). Correctional Institute, a place where
he will be corrected. The similarity with retarded is that people
forget the original meaning of the word, and it just sounds like another
word for prison.


crippled people.


I think I agree that cripple is usually obsolete now because for so many
people there are prostheses and motorized things, so that most are not
as crippled as they once would have been, maybe not at all. But otoh,
when someone can't do something, saying he's crippled shouldn't be
offensive. Changing the words used doesn't make his health any better.

Have you ever seen the original version of The Best years of our Lives,
where the soldier who has lost both his forearms and hands returns home
from the war. Played by a man who was in just that situation.

Back in the day, Moron, Imbecile and Idiot had specific IQ ranges to be
classified as such...


I sort of knew that, but I wonder what they do now. Just use IQ
numbers?

And I worked with all of them over the years.


I've met many of your co-workers at one bar or another.