There's a word that has eluded me for months. I'm pretty certain it exists. I'm looking for another way to say 'retard', but the word is not disadvantaged or mentally handicapped. What could I be trying to think of?
Thanks.
Thanks.
Another word for...
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Already mentioned are good euphemisms. Some formerly called retarded were also labeled "backward," "slow," "dull," or "impaired."
These days, "challenged" is popular.
These days, "challenged" is popular.
Umm, are you looking for an insult, a euphemism, or the actual appropriate and correct word for these disabilities? Developmental disabilities and learning disabilities are what they're called.
"Savant" is obsolete.
"Challenged" is patronizing and a lot of people with disabilities hate it (along with "special"), though I can't deny that it is rather common.
"Savant" is obsolete.
"Challenged" is patronizing and a lot of people with disabilities hate it (along with "special"), though I can't deny that it is rather common.
I often wonder who decides what's currently patronizing. I'm deaf. My sister and other deafies we know consider deafness a daily challenge. Meanwhile, instead of real assistance in overcoming some of the many challenges in a hearing world, most hearies content themselves with the task of creative labeling.
Officially, the U.S. Social Security system does not consider us disabled. We are officially only "challenged," but of course not to the point of receiving social security benefits until if and when we're 65, then at a much reduced rate due to a lifetime of meager jobs because to most employers we are "deaf and dumb."
Actual patronization goes far beyond a term as mild as "challenged."
We used "simple" when I was a kid. That, or "Weber" because Mrs. Weber was the special education teacher.
Oh, we used to say "sped" too. "Retarded" was by far the most common, though.
Oh, we used to say "sped" too. "Retarded" was by far the most common, though.
Time period and setting and the intention of the character using the word would be useful. Is this a contemporary high school bully? Or a Victorian lady doing charity work among the poor?
Holy crap that really sucks. Great thinking there, Social Security.
In the context I'm thinking of, "challenged" seems to carry the implication that if you just try hard enough, it'll all be good. I mean, deafness is a challenge for you, but would you say you're hearing challenged? Also I'm guessing that many of the challenges you face are due to the world being set up for hearing people and unaccomodating to others, which isn't really something you can fix just by trying really hard.
Er, that's not to say people shouldn't attempt to create change, just that... it's ridiculous to burden people with disabilities with the charge of living a normal life when it's able-bodies who put the "challenges" there in the first place.
Um, tangent much? XD Sorry everyone.
It gets worse. I know of people with lost limbs who were denied disability because they were able to drive a car.
One of the guys was a soldier who was injured in a roadside bomb, he lost both a leg and was turned down because he was able to drive his automatic car (no clutch, so you never need to use two pedals at once) he was very angry because he felt that his attempts at independance were being held against him. He said that although he could do some normal things, the assessors didn't look at the things he couldn't do. That they weren't there when he tried to climb the stairs, or when he tried to get to teh bathroom in the middle of the night.
There was also no finacial help for him to modify his home with handrails etc to make things easier for him, and for a couple of months when he came home he slept in the living room because he couldn't do the stairs.
And yet there are people getting full disability for much more minor issues.
For instance, alcholics here get full DLA, plus full income support and thier rent paid for them. They also get additional financal support to buy alcohol with because they have a disease, and it's cheaper for the health service to feed it than to cure it.
That makes sense, then, about 'challenged'.
I have a hideous back problem (and one hand doesn't work right but I hardly notice that -- I use the other one), and so many folks act like I'll be able to do whatever it is next week or something. Or if I try really hard and am a good girl, I'll be able to do the things I can't do. I say Bite Me, frankly.
I have a hideous back problem (and one hand doesn't work right but I hardly notice that -- I use the other one), and so many folks act like I'll be able to do whatever it is next week or something. Or if I try really hard and am a good girl, I'll be able to do the things I can't do. I say Bite Me, frankly.
Especially Lenore, your moderate reactions to my knee-jerk rant are humbling. It's not always the case, but I see here I'm preaching to the choir. Sorry.
I'm just at loss sometimes trying to keep up with the latest politically correct term as a band-aid meant to normalize. We deaf are just as bad with our "us versus them" division of deafies and hearies. We even bicker among ourselves with a you're-not-deaf-enough attitude about those who are "merely" hard-of-hearing.
My sister has been deaf 73 years, and I've been increasingly hard-of-hearing for decades and totally deaf ten years. No one has ever offered a poll as to what label we'd prefer. I think some posters are correct that it depends on the era and character in our works. At one time, deaf and dumb was simply descriptive of can't hear or speak, but the phrase sure gets us crazy these days.
Again, my apologies for going off on my tangent.
I'm just at loss sometimes trying to keep up with the latest politically correct term as a band-aid meant to normalize. We deaf are just as bad with our "us versus them" division of deafies and hearies. We even bicker among ourselves with a you're-not-deaf-enough attitude about those who are "merely" hard-of-hearing.
My sister has been deaf 73 years, and I've been increasingly hard-of-hearing for decades and totally deaf ten years. No one has ever offered a poll as to what label we'd prefer. I think some posters are correct that it depends on the era and character in our works. At one time, deaf and dumb was simply descriptive of can't hear or speak, but the phrase sure gets us crazy these days.
Again, my apologies for going off on my tangent.
Paul
Banned
I simply refuse to believe that.
I know things in the states are a bit, different, to Europe, but no way could this be true. Must be something else at work here.
Wow. So much insight. I am thinking now of using mentally challenged. But I thought maybe there was one word that would mean the same thing. Anyway, thanks all.
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"feeble-minded", maybe? It's derogatory and yet a bit more gentle a term than "retard", definitely something a lot of people would use and consider to be a considerate euphemism even a couple of decades ago, I think.
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As I recall, 'mentally retarded' was a considerate euphemism, but 'retard' (with the emphasis on 're') was an insult made up by children.
My own opinion is that no word can be invented that won't be misused by someone. When AIDs was new, I remember Cub Scouts running around touching one other and yelling, "You've got AIDs!"
What seems to work better is for a group to take a word and make it their own, as with Black is Beautiful, Black Power, and Gay Pride. (And Deaf, to some extent, though I don't like the direction it's gone in any more than you do, Chase.)
As for mental retardation, here's someone
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/rosas-law-asks-senate-kill-slur-mentally-retarded/story?id=9109319
who wants a retarded person to be called, an "individual with an intellectual disability."
"Intellectually disabled," might work. Or you can work around it. "James was in a special class at school." "Marcia had gone to school for six years as a child, but all she seemed to have learned was to recite her name and phone number."
No worries, Chase. It's a frustrating topic.
I don't have a hard time believing it at all. The trouble comes in finding the definition of a disability. In the US we recently had to pass a bill having to clarify, because the Supreme Court were being jerks with the "severe impairment that limits a major life activity" thing, arguing that if someone could work, drive a car, go to school, or what have you, they couldn't possibly be disabled. I recently read an article about a woman who was having a hard time getting her insurance to pay for her wheelchair, since she didn't use it at home, only when she was out in the community. Which is rather contradictory to the Supreme Court's issue, but it just goes to show that the People Who Make Decisions are freaking clueless.
I don't have a hard time believing it at all. The trouble comes in finding the definition of a disability. In the US we recently had to pass a bill having to clarify, because the Supreme Court were being jerks with the "severe impairment that limits a major life activity" thing, arguing that if someone could work, drive a car, go to school, or what have you, they couldn't possibly be disabled. I recently read an article about a woman who was having a hard time getting her insurance to pay for her wheelchair, since she didn't use it at home, only when she was out in the community. Which is rather contradictory to the Supreme Court's issue, but it just goes to show that the People Who Make Decisions are freaking clueless.
Yeah, Bonnie, that capital D deaf thing was a big flop. It was started and embraced by some who supposed capital letters somehow commanded respect.
Most deafies I know who don't embarrass themselves by capitalizing the pope, the queen, the president (no, he's not an exception) and anything else they feel like hoisting up a flagpole write that they're deaf.
In the same way, the blind, the mute, the depressed, and the terminally stupid are not the Blind, the Mute, the Depressed, and the Terminally Stupid.
Savant is not obsolete, but it isn't a good synonym for a simpleton. It is reduced from "idiot savant", a term coined by John Langdon Down, and has the literal meaning of a knowing idiot. An idiot savant knows heaps about one or two topics, but not much else. Depending on who did the research, about 10-25% of autistic persons have this skill. About 50% of savants are autistic.