My Mom still calls Downs people Mongoloids. My older neighbors calls my daughters black friends Colored. I call savants Idiot Savants. Retarded is now Mentally Handicapped.
I know people thinks its all PC, but is it?
How does an accepted term become unaccepted?

When it's added to the lexicon of swear words

How does that happen? Who decides?

How does that happen? Who decides?

majority

intention

My Mom still calls Downs people Mongoloids. My older neighbors calls my daughters black friends Colored. I call savants Idiot Savants. Retarded is now Mentally Handicapped.
I know people thinks its all PC, but is it?
How does an accepted term become unaccepted?

Actually, it's nothing more than an attempt to "soften" the impact of the label. Once a term has been in use long enough to carry a distinct negative connotation, you will find people making an effort to change it.

Pretty much the same reason that "garbage man" became "sanitation engineer" (besides the little status boost tied to it). Eventually, "mentally handicapped" will become too negative-sounding for some and will be replaced with something like "cognitive-challenged." And it will be the same with all the rest of them, too.

My Mom still calls Downs people Mongoloids. My older neighbors calls my daughters black friends Colored. I call savants Idiot Savants. Retarded is now Mentally Handicapped. I know people thinks its all PC, but is it? How does an accepted term become unaccepted?In modern America, it's generally the press that establishes these conventions. They may be initially perpetrated by populist organizations and given a little time to be tested to see if they catch on within the community sympathetic to the cause they are meant to promote. But they don't really permeate our culture until the media pick them up.

My own personal hot button is the term "creationism" and this scholarly discussion is probably the only time you'll ever see me legitimize it by typing it. Excuse me while I wipe the spit off of my screen. It should be called what it is: "evolution denial," just like the term "Holocaust denial." The C-word was coined by religious fundie crackpots, it caught on in the religious fundie crackpot community, and for reasons only the goddess knows the media adopted it at the time of the Great Religious Fundie Crackpot Revival in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Language is a powerful and subversive tool, and tens of millions of Americans have been brainwashed by the seeming respectability of the C-word into believing that evolution denialism is a legitimate scientific theory.

"Idiot savant" was in use as recently as 1988, when the movie "Rain Man" brought the public attention to the issue. Who could call Dustin Hoffman an "idiot"? The problem with just plain "savant" is that it means something else. A savant is a person of learning, especially in a particular field of expertise. I doubt that Marilyn Vos Savant, the popular columnist with the world's highest documented IQ, is pleased with the trend of using her name for a type of cognitive disability.

"Mongoloid" was in use thirty years ago. It was the title of one of New Wave band Devo's jumpiest songs.Mongoloid, he was a mongoloid: one chromosome too many. The terms mongoloid, caucasoid and negroid are still used in the popular paradigm of three human "races," but they are so politically incorrect--as are virtually all alternative naming conventions that include labels like "white" or "Oriental"--that discussion of this paradigm is somewhat stifled.

I have seen non-Americans innocently use the term "coloured" on SciForums. The discussion of race is so politically charged that the terminology that is safe and accepted changes at least once with every generation. I must point out that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is one of America's most honored organizations. The cliche goes, "My great grandpa was a [N-word], my grandpa was colored, my uncle was was a negro, my pa was black, and I'm an African-American. That's the major difference between my great grandpa's life and mine."

Ethnic names are the most controversial. Many people object to the word Jew, although none of the members of the Jewish branch of my family tree feel that way about it. What else are they supposed to be? Hebrews? Israeli-Americans? They are absolutely flummoxed by the newfound political incorrectness of the Yiddish word shvartze, which literally means "black person," the very term that is politically correct in English. They're struggling to find a replacement. They can't just say Afrikaner-Amerikaner like we do because the Yiddish language community is not Americentric. Maybe they'll adopt whatever Hebrew word the Israelis use.

Some strident leaders of the "Latino" community have made a tempest in a teapot over what they wish to be called. When I was a kid in the Southwest they just called themselves Mexicans. "Sure, we weren't born in what is now Mexico, but we were born and still reside in what was once Mexico!" Then their children wanted to be called Chicanos, a word whose most authoritative etymologies I regard with suspicion but I can't offer a better one. As immigrants and their children with roots in Cuba and then all of Latin America turned the community into a miniature Melting Pot of "people with ancestry in Spanish-speaking Western Hemisphere countries," the federal government stepped in and labeled them "hispanic" with a lower case H, a word still enshrined in census forms and other government documents. The more strident "hispanics" rebelled at that one, "You're identifying us with the occupying armies that destroyed our own indigenous civilizations." Now the strident seem to want to be called Latinos with an L that is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not. Which is fine as long as they agree that the people of Brazil, the 600-pound gorilla of "Latin" America, are also Latinos because Portuguese is also a Romance language. As is French, the language of Haiti and Martinique, as well as Quebec and much of Louisiana. I can hardly wait to see Céline Dion and Buckwheat Zydeco perform at the next ALMA Awards!

My own personal hot button is the term "creationism" and this scholarly discussion is probably the only time you'll ever see me legitimize it by typing it. Excuse me while I wipe the spit off of my screen. It should be called what it is: "evolution denial," just like the term "Holocaust denial." The C-word was coined by religious fundie crackpots, it caught on in the religious fundie crackpot community, and for reasons only the goddess knows the media adopted it at the time of the Great Religious Fundie Crackpot Revival in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Language is a powerful and subversive tool, and tens of millions of Americans have been brainwashed by the seeming respectability of the C-word into believing that evolution denialism is a legitimate scientific theory.


Since the moderator went on a tangent, I feel semi-safe following. I think there actually is some basis for using the term creationism. In fact there is a fundamental difference between beliefs based on steady states and beliefs based on beginnings. Back when creationism became a term, I believe, most physicists were still going on the idea that the universe had always been around or was always being 'created'. Everything is just eternally unfolding or going in cycles. To believe that things started at some point is distinct from this and oddly enough became the generally accepted theory until recently when ideas about time before the first big bang and multi-universes starting getting tossed around. (I realize that physicists tend not to talk about a creator, nevertheless those with the 'mythology' were surely mocked by philosophers for positing a beginning and a causeless cause. Yet, physicists ended up saying something similar. ((Don't worry, I don't think any of this proves there is a God)))

When is a person supposed to know that they can no longer say something? Wait to be corrected? Its not like there's a memo that goes out.

My Mom was medically trained to say Mongoloid. Why was there a shift away from it?

My Mom still calls Downs people Mongoloids. My older neighbors calls my daughters black friends Colored. I call savants Idiot Savants. Retarded is now Mentally Handicapped.
I know people thinks its all PC, but is it?
How does an accepted term become unaccepted?

One word.

Politics.

Hypocritically it becomes unacceptable for the majority (white) population to use such terms since it's a political tool to attract minority votes.

However, you'll find minorities continuing to use these terms like their going out of fashion.

My Mom was medically trained to say Mongoloid. Why was there a shift away from it?

Because it was a somewhat odd cross-over from anthropology, where "mongoloid" was a term for "oriental" racial types. People with Down's Syndrome were termed "mongoloids" because (mostly Caucasian) doctors thought the afflicted looked like east Asians.

It arose because John Langdon Down (of "Down's Syndrome) thought that the seemingly Asiatic features of Down's Syndrome were evidence of evolutionary degeneration of whites...which is how he medically explained Down's Syndrome. The term "mongoloid" thereafter picked up the connotation of being a degenerate idiot in common speech, as opposed to "person with Down's Syndrome." As such, it started to seem a bit cruel to use the same term—which grew into a general insult rather than just a technical medical term—to describe those with the medical condition.

Since it's not very descriptive of those with Down's Syndrome to start with, being based on a 19th century misunderstanding of both the causes of Down's Syndrome and the evolution of Asiatic facial features in East Asian populations, it's not such a huge loss.

"Colored" fell out of use for somewhat more complicated reasons. Some whote people did start to use "colored" in an condescending way, but also some blacks began to see those accepting the "colored" moniker as being too docile. "Black" arose as more powerful statement of racial pride, and simply came to replace the "colored."

I don't think "colored" is considered innately particularly offensive, but it draws attention simply because it's so dated. One might wonder why one would use such a dated term in the same way one might be momentarily perplexed hear a child referred to as "poppet," a family farmer called a "peasant," or a dog called a "cur." That some people formerly used "colored" to mean "not as good as white" once upon a time then increases the potential that some invidious use will be perceived.

When is a person supposed to know that they can no longer say something?Reading a big-city newspaper regularly--not even every day--will probably get you to the 90th percentile of politically correct speech. I suppose TV news will get you to the 75th percentile since its bandwidth is smaller, but I'd rather be punished for political incorrectness than endure The News For People Who Can't Read.Wait to be corrected?Well yeah! Americans love to form cliques and make those who are not in them go through rites of passage. Calling a woman a "lady" instead of a "person" is equivalent to saying she's "cool" instead of "hot" or whatever the kids say today. I remember when "phat" was a compliment, that blew over quickly.Its not like there's a memo that goes out.It tends to come out a little too late. Yesterday was the first time I saw a news article in which a "Latina" complained about being called "hispanic," and that controversy has been brewing for fifteen or twenty years.My Mom was medically trained to say Mongoloid. Why was there a shift away from it?I didn't even know about that one! As I said, I see people shying away from Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid in discussing gene pools that developed after the diaspora out of Africa. But that leaves them with White, Black and Yellow, which is both a little retro and a little imprecise since the "red" people are Mongoloid. European, African and Oriental is even more retro and more imprecise. I first heard the term Downs Syndrome about ten years ago so I would have assumed that medical professionals were familiar with it before that, but obviously that's not true. I didn't know that Downs = mongoloid, but they would.

When I was a child, my grandmother from Tupelo, Mississippi, came to visit us. She still used the term "colored" to descibe black people. One day, I was upset because none of my friends could play. My grandmother suggested I should go down to the schoolyard where she saw a group of "cul'lud" children playing. I ran off...excited...thinking I was going to see blue and green and red children. (since I had never heard of the term "colored")

When I returned from playing, she asked me if I found the colored children, I said no...but I didn't find a group of black kids. :)

Message deleted. See below.Moderator's note: According to the policies and rules of SciForums, your post belongs in Pseudoscience. It would not serve the membership to move the entire thread to that subforum so my only choice is to delete your post from the thread. The theory of evolution is science and may be referred to anywhere on SciForums, and derogatory remarks about crackpot theories may be freely posted anywhere so long as they are not completely off topic. Debate about the validity of science, its principles, or its theories is of course welcome, but belongs in the proper subforums: Philosophy, Free Thoughts, or General Science. Attacks on science and counterscientific assertions are not permitted in the other subforums and are considered trolling. If you wish to make an extraordinary assertion, you must respect the scientific method and provide extraordinary substantiation. The place to do that is in the three subforums named above. You are also free to post in Religion or Pseudoscience, where the rules are more lenient. I believe there is even a Sticky Note in the Biology subforum where your thoughts about evolution denial may be succinctly expressed.

Perhaps it would put your soul at ease then if you used the term "Scientific Creationism." Another alternative, which may be more amenable to your biases in this matter, is the term "Creation Science."
For a related use of that honorific, here: http://www.rosicrucian.com/ssa/ssaeng01.htm

The use of 'science" and "scientific" to describe a particular methodology or rigor in approach, with the results so obtained, is also appropriate - although less complimentary, since it carries an implication of uncertainty and ever-present possibility of error.

As a synonym for "asserted firmly, with unshakeable conviction", "scientific" is a bit prissy - we look forward to better terms, perhaps "fatwaic" ?

Both idiot and moron used to be terms to indicate the mentally retarded. I think it's a matter of when the words are annexed by the ill-intended.

Additionally, some of the "PC" terms are actually more accurate. One of my teachers in high school had a son who was affected by a rare genetic disorder that presented mild learning difficulties. This was at a time when the word used for the mentally retarded was "developmentally delayed". This one has the capacity to achieve a "normal" level of knowledge, but it's just going to take longer, and a bit more effort. I certainly would not have classified him as a "retard".

My Mom has never liked the term "deaf and dumb" she prefers "deaf and mute" Don't know why cuz she never shuts up.
Anyways she now says "I am not deaf, I am hearing impaired. And by the way, how is your mongoloid son.":rolleyes:

My Mom has never liked the term "deaf and dumb" she prefers "deaf and mute" Don't know why cuz she never shuts up. Anyways she now says "I am not deaf, I am hearing impaired. And by the way, how is your mongoloid son.":rolleyes:"Deaf" generally means "so deaf that you can't talk to me." A hearing impairment can be a less catastrophic condition such as hers. "Dumb" originally meant "lacking the power of speech," so "deaf and dumb" was a logical description of the condition of most people who were deaf from birth and therefore never learned to speak because of that handicap. (Some do learn with patient teaching, by mimicking mouth shapes and feeling the vibrations of the teacher's voice box, Helen Keller being the most famous example.) As recently as 1969 The Who called Tommy "that deaf, dumb and blind kid."

But "dumb" was also an epithet for animals, who obviously could not speak either. "Dumb animal" came to refer as much to their presumed stupidity as their lack of fluency in human language, and eventually the meaning easily transferred to its use with humans. M-W.com lists "stupid" as meaning #6, but in colloquial American speech it was #1 by the time I was old enough to realize it in the 1950s. It's so well established that the computer industry had no qualms about coining the term "dumb terminal" for a workstation that has only data communication capability but no data processing. In other words a dumb terminal can talk, but it can't think!

Spanish uses mudo, its descendant of the Latin word mutus, for "mute." They have the compound word sordomudo for deaf-mute, a durable kind of word that probably won't be easily subverted. (Sordo is from Latin surdus, "deaf. You may encounter our word "surd" in this subforum, the linguistic term for a voiceless sound, e.g., F and T as opposed to V and D.) Shakira's megahit that broke her into the Mexican market, the steppingstone to the American market, was Ciega Sordomuda, "Blind Deaf-Mute Lady."

I hate PC vocab changes too. Words have meaning. Mongoloid became an insult because people with Down's Syndrome have low IQ's.

Hell, most people don't even know that words like moron, imbecile, and idiot have technical meanings but are no longer used because it might hurt peoples feelings.

Moron (IQ 50-69)
Imbecile (IQ 20-49)
Idiot (below 20).

All of these terms became unacceptable because people knew what they meant. They are used to describe some deficiency in our mental or physical capabilities.

So some do-gooder comes along and creates a new term. You're not retarded, you're "mentally challenged". That works for a while, until everyone learned that "mentally challenged" means the same thing retard does. Then it's time for a new term.

Moron (IQ 50-69), Imbecile (IQ 20-49), Idiot (below 20).It's interesting that we don't have terms for people that many sigmas above average. "Genius" is not very specific. One of the hallmarks of our collectivist era is that we don't want to give any kid the impression that he's "special" in a good way. Our educational philosophy should be more honestly called, "No Child Pushed Ahead."

"Deaf" generally means "so deaf that you can't talk to me." A hearing impairment can be a less catastrophic condition such as hers. ...

She was deaf, she got an implant so now she wants her designation changed. :)

I had an argument that literally lasted days with a girl that was staying at my house about the word "retarded", and whether it is derogatory or not.
If someone IS literally retarded, then there is NOTHING wrong with saying they are retarded. The simple fact that people refer to not retarded people as retarded, does NOT mean the term is derogatory, when used in proper context.
She swore up and down that the term retarded was inherently derogatory, and should never be used, even in a medical context becase it denigrates the person you are referring to.
She claimed that it was a term that was used by doctors at a time when "mentally challenged" people were shuffled off to dark hospitals to be maltreated and, as such, had a negative denotation, not just a negative connotation.

Political Correctness irritates me to no end, mainly because it gives the power of ownership of the language to people like her.

She was deaf, she got an implant so now she wants her designation changed.To what??? "The Mom Formerly Known As Deaf"? :)I had an argument that literally lasted days with a girl that was staying at my house about the word "retarded", and whether it is derogatory or not. Political Correctness irritates me to no end, mainly because it gives the power of ownership of the language to people like her.That's a little harsh. When you hear a democratic language community like us anglophones using a word as an insult, it becomes an insult. 99% of the time the word "retarded" is used in America, it is leveled at an unretarded person to make the speaker's exaggerated point that his words or deeds are not what is expected of an unretarded person.

I'll defer to anyone who's researched this, but I'll bet that the N-word was not originally an insult. Remember that the Spanish were the original slave traders and negro is a Spanish word, pronounced with a cardinal E. We're already pronouncing it "wrong" with our English long E. Southerners, with their own rustic dialect, just pronounced it even wronger than the rest of us. I'd like to know when the N-word first showed up in print because I suspect that in speech it was just a dialect pronunciation of the written word "negro."

We've been doing much better with Spanish words since the U.S. seized all that Mexican territory with its Spanish-speaking population. In California we pronounce rodeo correctly, with a cardinal E and the accent on it. Even "buckaroo" is arguably a more faithful pronunciation of vaquero than what I can imagine is heard in England, probably vuh-QUEER-oh. I've heard Englishmen pronounce tequila as tee-QUILL-ah.

And didn't we all have to read Don JOO-an in college, gritting our teeth the whole time? :) It was a popular freshman prank to write a poem in response, rhyming "Don Juan" with the poet's name: by-RON.

That's a little harsh.
This is also a girl who refused to call people from Mexico "Mexicans" because where she is from, calling someone a "Mexican" is an insult.
We were talking about a Mexican, and she kept referring to him as "Hispanic" (which isn't even correct, and most Mexicans I have known would take as an insult).

If anything, what she was doing was insulting and disrespectful, because she was essentially saying, "I'm not going to refer to you as a Mexican, because that is an insult."

This is also a girl who refused to call people from Mexico "Mexicans" because where she is from, calling someone a "Mexican" is an insult.
We were talking about a Mexican, and she kept referring to him as "Hispanic" (which isn't even correct, and most Mexicans I have known would take as an insult)."
Someone probably told her she shouldn't call all Hispanic people Mexicans. You know, you see a guy swarthy guy with a Spanish accent and assume he's Mexican. (You'd be right, 99% of the time)

Unfortunately for her, they didn't explain that the reason to not call all hispanics Mexicans is that they're not all from Mexico. But if you know for a fact that someone is Mexican, calling them that is no insult.

Someone probably told her she shouldn't call all Hispanic people Mexicans.And you shouldn't call them "hispanics" either even though the Census Bureau still gets away with it. Statistically they have far more indigenous blood than Spanish and the Spaniards obliterated almost every trace of indigenous civilization. This is just the opposite of Egypt, where most people have more Arab ancestry yet they name themselves after the civilization their own ancestors destroyed.You know, you see a guy swarthy guy with a Spanish accent and assume he's Mexican. (You'd be right, 99% of the time.)Only in the Southwest and a few other regions. Here in the D.C. area they're mostly Salvadoreños and Colombianos. When I went to see Shakira do a stadium gig in Philly I think there were only about eight of us there who were not Colombian.Unfortunately for her, they didn't explain that the reason to not call all hispanics Mexicans is that they're not all from Mexico. But if you know for a fact that someone is Mexican, calling them that is no insult.American-born children of Mexican parents were content to be called Mexicans when I attended high school with them fifty years ago--even those who could not speak Spanish. Nowadays they have been more politicized and they call themselves Americans like the rest of us with immigrant ancestors. The leading Latino music radio station in L.A. had their DJs switch to speaking English. It's not fashionable among the younger generation to speak the old language any more. So you'd better not call one of them a Mexican or you'll be in for a lecture--by him and his girlfriend of Chinese or Iranian ancestry.

And you shouldn't call them "hispanics" either even though the Census Bureau still gets away with it.
Well, Hispanic is as good a name as any. Really about the only thing many "hispanics" have in common is they speak Spanish. There are white hispanics, black ones, brown ones, even yellow ones. So why not use hispanic?

On a personal note, my father is of Spanish decent although his father grew up in Cuba. The census form says "White, not of hispanic origin" or "hispanic". So you're apparently not supposed to check off white if you have a Spanish name.

Yet when my father was having some trouble at work he tried to appeal to the EEOC. He was told he wasn't hispanic since he had Spanish ancestry so the EEOC wouldn't help him!

Well, Hispanic is as good a name as any. Really about the only thing many "hispanics" have in common is they speak Spanish. There are white hispanics, black ones, brown ones, even yellow ones. So why not use hispanic?These days an increasing percentage of their children do not speak Spanish, although they can't help picking up the accent from their parents as well as some of the culture. If they have a Spanish surname most agencies will browbeat them into checking the "Hispanic" box even though they see themselves in the same light as the children of Italian or Russian immigrants.On a personal note, my father is of Spanish decent although his father grew up in Cuba. The census form says "White, not of hispanic origin" or "hispanic". So you're apparently not supposed to check off white if you have a Spanish name. Yet when my father was having some trouble at work he tried to appeal to the EEOC. He was told he wasn't hispanic since he had Spanish ancestry so the EEOC wouldn't help him!So one government agency considers people with obvious roots in Spain "hispanic," while another specifically disqualifies them. Many of the people themselves don't even speak Spanish. Others dismiss the Spaniards as the people who raped their great ^ 7 grandmothers. Do you see why the word is so controversial? :)

Our educational philosophy should be more honestly called, "No Child Pushed Ahead."

Just so.

when did 'feeble minded' go away?

when did 'feeble minded' go away?

It is still in my vocabulary.

When did 'feeble minded' go away?That's pretty old-fashioned. Even fifty years ago I only heard it used humorously or in movies as a mark of backwoods dialect. Maybe it was still in vogue in Britain. "Feeb," as an insult, had seeped into American slang but it was not widely used, at least not in the Southwest. "Mentally retarded" was the P.C. term for the handicap; "retarded" was not co-opted as an insult until a few years later. I first heard "retard" as a noun, with the accent on the E, in the 1970s.

is the correct saying 'speech impairment' or 'speech impediment'

speech impairment would be my guess

is the correct saying 'speech impairment' or 'speech impediment'An impediment is an organic obstruction, like a deformed lip or tongue. An impairment is an injury, which may be in the brain.

Ever heard a deaf person speak? Which do they have?

Ever heard a deaf person speak? Which do they have?Yes I have, at least on TV. And I saw film of Helen Keller many decades ago. I'd have to do this by process of elimination. They clearly don't have an organic obstruction. So I'd have to go with "impairment." But seriously I don't think this paradigm applies to absolutely every human being who does not speak normally. I think if we just call them "deaf" and leave it a that, no further categorization is needed. You could ask what the term is for a person with a foreign accent, or a toddler who hasn't mastered speech yet.

My Mom is asked where she is from. People think its an accent, but all her childhood she'd been told she has a speech problem. Thanks for this explanation. I can't wait to tell her. :)