I try. I mean, I really try. I know there are some words that are insulting and I don't use them. Certain expressions that I agree are distasteful and I correct them when I hear them.
Yesterday I saw a Twitter 'Popular in Your Network' that had random tweets of people I follow and SB Sarah tweeted something about using the word crippling as being ableist.
She has crippling anxiety. He was crippled with doubt.
These are not insulting sentences. These are descriptive sentences. If you have a bad leg and don't wish to be called crippled and prefer 'differently abled' then more power to you. But if you think that my saying a have a crippling fear of public speaking is an insult to you, well, get your head out of your cunt and grow up.
And stop fucking with a wonderful language that has many different nuances and meanings to many different words. It's fucking pathetic when people are that sensitive.
What you said...
ReplyDeleteWhat next? Sinceriously? Things just seem to be getting worse, not better.
Some people will find a word and just make it all their own and god forbid anyone else who wants to use it, either as is or as you say, with many of it's nuances. It's almost like they came up with the word.
There are many words I find offensive (the c word for one) but I don't go around telling people not to use it or advising if they do use it, it's only allowed to be used the one way.
Kisses, in all it's many forms and places to you my friend!
:D
You may remember, from the discussion on batshit crazy sometime at my blog, that I try to avoid using specific words that are offensive to people, because I agree that language has impact on people's lives, and often the influence of language on behaviour is not easily identified.
ReplyDeleteIt can be subtle--like always/only using "he/him/his" in dictionary entries; we internalize that "male" is the norm.
However, picture me agreeing with you on this one: where is the stopping point for descriptive language?
I was re-reading a passage from a Lord Peter Wimsey novel, and a character says (paraphrasing) that so-and-so is 'crazy making.' I can already hear someone, somewhere, saying that that too is ableist/dismissive of people with mental health issues.
When did 'ableist' become a thing? Why did disabled become differently abled when someone is unable? Just because you lose use of a limb doesn't mean you compensate in other ways becoming differently abled. You're unable to use the limb.
ReplyDeleteSome people do make the crazy. And I am crippled with fear when it comes to public speaking. And batshit crazy is not a put down of bats.
And how is douchetard okay when it still uses a variation of retard? And what's wrong with being batshit crazy? Sometimes you just just gotta.
Sorry Az, I lurve ya but without tongue (reserved for you Lea!) but here I disagree. I don't think cutting limbs off the language tree makes it healthier. I think we're killing the tree and in doing so will watch the entire breadth of the forest be destroyed.
Then again, asking people--particularly authors, who in theory enjoy language--to search for alternatives can't necessarily be a bad thing in and of itself.
DeleteUsing your examples, we could say that she has a paralyzing anxiety, that he was paralyzed with fear.
It is very difficult when we are not the ones towards whom those words are used to diminish and dehumanize, to understand (in a visceral level) how they can be offensive in anyone else's eyes. But I imagine that people who have been called criples would find it harder to see those two sentences as fully neutral (i.e., entirely inoffensive).
Am I making sense?
However someone will be offended because they suffer paralysis in a limb and therefore that language is ableist.
ReplyDeleteAgreed; at some point the madness has to stop.
DeleteOn the other hand, who is to decide where the point is, where terms are or are not offensive.
Just because something doesn't hurt or offend me, it doesn't mean I get to decide that it shouldn't offend, or hurt, or damage someone else.
(Have we reached the point where we agree to disagree, and stop the back and forth?_
There are all sorts of people, with all sorts of problems in this world and it would be impossible to satisfy them all. Or even to know why some of them are offended.
ReplyDeleteA crippling disease is quite different than calling someone a cripple, imo and it makes me impatient when I see stuff like this. There are, however, words which I think everyone can agree on, such as the N word and yes, even retarded, although the word itself is not bad per se, but rather the use to which it's put by individual speakers.