Using ableist language as insults is always bad, even if the words seem innocuous. Some may reference the “euphemism treadmill” to try to justify their behavior, but it’s crucial to understand that the treadmill is merely a linguistic observation. It does not exist to normalize ableist behavior.
what is the euphemism treadmill for those who dont want to google
Just about any term that refers to someone else can be used as an insult!
So as the old saying goes “offense is taken, not given”. If you want to be insulted, you will be.
I find, people who insult others are saying more about their own character, than that of the target.
du hast doch lack gesoffen “idiot”, “neurodivergent” & “lame” als abelism zu bezeichnen.
was so angry/disappointed in that post that i couldn’t get the message across with English.
That’s angry. (0o0)
eh angry doesn’t fit how i felt. upset maybe? anyway i could only bring across my emotion via german
Idiot is ableist?
it isn’t necessarily, unless it’s used with ableist intent. good explanation someone made
how is special needs ableist?
Anything is ableist if that’s the intention is to be ableist. “Cognitive impairment” or “Brain damage” are clinical terms, but if one decides they can also be ableist insults.
it’s not, unless there is intent. i see draconic left a great reaponse to you so i will give that my seal of approval instead of rewriting.
I’ve been thinking about how we call people “right-handed” and “left-handed” instead of “handedness-typical” and “handedness-divergent”
sinister used to just mean left handed!
Didn’t know that one, it’s a nice one.
Well there’s right handed and left handed threading which assumes a person with two hands and joints that turn in the opposite directions.
actually GOATED INSIGHT my friend keep it up
Idk man, a good chunk of these are just sorta not that associated with their origins anymore. A lot of insults are historically demeaning towards certain groups (especially poor people).
as always, act everything considering the window of present you are in. “idiot” means a lot less offense today than it did back in the day.
I agree. “idiot-proof” is a common term in the design industry and it’s somewhat synonymous with accessibility, fault tolerance, and resilience.
Reasonable.
Neurodivergent isn’t an insult…
Not YET!
With that theory, any word could become an insult.
Bingo. I assumed more people understood this, so I apologize for not communicating clearly. Any word can become an insult—with the right people in control. What’s particularly hurtful is seeing words that marginalized or oppressed groups use to describe their own experiences being co-opted and turned into insults, reinforcing their otherness.
It happened with “retard,” as with “idiot,” and so many others. Recently, I’ve seen it happen with more niche phrases (look up “is X acoustic” if you’re unfamiliar). Just the other day, I made a comment that I could see two perspectives on a matter. Instead of simply calling me wrong, someone said, “You must be neurodivergent, you’re so gullible.” In that context, “neurodivergent” was clearly being used as a stand-in for the r-slur.
To be clear, I am not against any language. I’m against the weaponizing of language.
👍🏻
What’s interesting about the word retard specifically is it’s still used as a technical term that has nothing to do with developmental disabilities - for example, fire retardant - to slow/stop something.
right, i mean thats just kind of a side effect of language existing
a similar concept appears in the terms “dumbwaiter,” “dumbfounded,” “dumbstruck” wherein “dumb” literally just meant mechanical/nonspeaking, and had none of the other implications of disability-related muteness it has now.
obviously “dumb” carries a lot less weight these days than the r slur, but the existence of etymologically related terms doesn’t give an “out” to people using them for offense and denigration in either case
That’s the attitude one would expect from such a high class individual.
Correct
“Cisgender” isn’t an insult either, but that doesn’t stop Elon Musk and his flunkies from treating it as such.
mega fax
correct, it’s not (or shouldn’t be), but it’s being used as one, especially recently!
precontext: i said i could see both sides of some non-important debate. something about whether a community mod should be heavy or light with bans, and i was like, “well it depends on what the motivations and needs are.”
their response to that?
in this post i hope to call attention to the same destructive processes happening to “neurodiverse” as to all the other terms. particularly i want to call out the ableist motivations behind it.
You can use gay, homosexual, homo habilis as insults
That doesnt make these words bad
precisely? never said otherwise :) to quote another person right in this thread whom i agree with:
It’s an insult because of intent, not because of the word itself, though.
It’s an insult because of intent, not because of the word itself, though.
oh absolutely :) would never disagree with you here 💯💯💯
Yeah and I could call you a wet blanket for not realizing words can be used however the fuck you want.
Without the context it doesn’t come off as insulting.
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I’m autistic, adhd, and I had a brain injury. Triple neurodivergent. 🙄
Go ahead and block me, I don’t really care, I think without context you taking offense to calling someone who is gullible “neurodivergent” seems over sensitive. Autistic people in particular unfortunately can be gullible and people abuse that.
okay sorry. i had no patience at the time to try to walk you through how the above is an obvious insult. unblocking because i value ND individuals having a voice, thanks for being chill and bearing with me in my stupidity
Really unkind in which threads? Yeah, I’m an asshole about politics, because I’ve had it up to here with backstabbing liberals who vote blue no matter who and scold the left while losing elections like it’s their job (because it is, they exist as a ratchet to prevent any kind of left wing reform). I’ve spent the last two and a half decades watching this country fall to fascism while there’s zero real opposition to it. As a queer neurodivergent I don’t have any more patience left for liberals.
ugh i apologize. i can’t find any specific incidents that i remember so i must be incorrect. yesterday i was quite frustrated at people implicitly calling me a liar or overly sensitive to something that was quite obvious to me and i remembered your username and the vibe of your “asshole about politics” behavior (which is totally understandable btw) so i made a snap decision to single you out rather than checking the actual quality of what i remember.
you have my formal apology. this place is hella stressful and i do my best to be kind but this was an instance where i failed that, and it impacted you semi-directly.
give me a few minutes i’ll remove all my baseless and unkind commentary surrounding you.
block all you want, but they did not say to ignore the context and be happy
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seeing as ableist terms are always rooted in previously uncontroversial medical terms i propose the term “the swag ones”
just got diagnosed with cool guy syndrom so now i take… adderall
today i learned that ‘cretin’ has ableist origins. just hearing the word, and being completely unaware of its origins, i assumed it had racist origins and was somehow related to the isle of crete.
apparently ‘cretinism’ is an old-timey word for congenital iodine deficiency syndrome.
okay wow TIL too! i was just pulling from memory and a few online examples but i never dove into the specific histories of that particular word!
If one of the words needs an asterisk instead of a letter, I don’t think all of them are equal…
I have an older family member who is severely mentally disabled and always has been. His medical records diagnosed him as r*tarded. The adults diagnosing him at the time didn’t understand enough about mental conditions and their differences when he was a child. So kids like him were diagnosed with that. It did have more ‘legitimate’ uses than it does in our current context. Doesn’t make it good or right, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have tried to be more specific either. That legacy leads to now where we have the nuance and resources to do better. I am glad it’s more and more relagated to the past as it’s consistently been used to dehumanize people.
good thing i didn’t say they were all equal :)
The euphemism treadmill rather implies we simply load all the meaning and intention on a new word when the old one becomes unacceptable.
But that clearly isn’t the case with this series of words. Many of these words have clearly different meanings and different social stigmas, and some are in use at the same time.
not at all what im discussing but, glad you were able to come to your own conclusion on this
for my part, no opinion. i just think calling people ableist insults is bad.
I mean I’d say the asterisk is overdoing it, and that this is mostly because retard isn’t used as a medical diagnosis anymore. If it does ever really die expect special needs or another such word to take its place.
Oftentimes people ask me why I bother using the asterisk at all. And the answer isn’t to pay respect to those who have been othered for their entire lives by this language, or to minimize the chance of a ban from heavyhanded mods. It’s actually to make you upset, specifically.
Lmao.
Interesting. Feels like there’s a bit of a paradox, where we need a term to address a group of people who are being “othered,” but while that’s the case, there will be people who use that term as an insult.
the better strategy might be to investigate and challenge what forces cause people to use ableist insults
True. Or just discard their attempts to taint the language. Like how some slurs have been reclaimed.
yea! reclamation is my personal fav cuz its so gorgeously petty
… would you like to walk away from Omelas…?
i get the reference but not how it applies here
Shouldn’t this, then, extend to all implications of stupidity in behavior, not just individual words?
Good thought, because yes, this rule applies to a lot of behaviors—insulting someone’s actions or reasoning can sometimes carry ableist implications if we’re not careful. But no, it doesn’t mean all implications of foolishness are inherently ableist. It’s entirely possible to critique someone’s choices, reasoning, or behavior without tying it to assumptions about intelligence or ability. The key is focusing on what they did or said rather than who they are.
For example: “I see you’ve chosen confidence over accuracy again.” This critiques someone’s approach or behavior—being overly confident while wrong—without targeting their intelligence or abilities.
I see you’ve chosen confidence over accuracy again
This is honestly a great way of calling someone stupid, but you do realise that it can be very offensive to people with narcissistic personality disorder, right?
Joke aside, what is really stupid about this is the idea of “insulting someone without hurting there feelings”, or as you wrote
insulting someone’s actions or reasoning can sometimes carry ableist implications if we’re not careful.
When honestly insulting someone, there is typically an intent to be hurtful, the idea that you should be careful to “not use language that can offend X group” when doing so, kind of overlooks the whole situation of “insulting” going on
I wrote that sentence you quoted carefully. I did not use the phrase “hurt feelings” intentionally because it’s not what I meant.
I meant “carry ableist impressions,” so I wrote “carry ableist impressions.” Hurting feelings is not a sin. Contributing to a system of ableism that precipitates in mistreatment and curtailed rights for disabled people? Is a category of oppressive behavior.
I will thank you to interrogate my position for what I actually said rather than what you assume I said in the future.
Is it permissible, conversely, to describe things as smart, in a positive sense?
Furthermore, doesn’t choosing confidence over accuracy itself imply that reduced accuracy is a bad thing, despite it being something that people with reduced intellectual capacity cannot reasonably avoid?
I can’t think of examples right now, (edit: but thought of some later) but it’s definitely possible to describe something as “smart” in a way that’s ableist—like if it ties someone’s value only to intelligence or reinforces stereotypes about who’s considered “smart.” However, I’m sure the vast majority of ways to describe something as “smart” wouldn’t really be considered ableist and so are “permissible” in my book.
How so? Isn’t necessarily acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality imply lack of it is a negative one?
Ah, we have a difference in terms here.
Acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality
is never ableist.
Acknowledging intelligence as a
positivequalitycan be ableist, depending on what values are being cast.
It’s about how intelligence is framed in relation to others and whether it’s used to dismiss people who might not fit those standards.
Ah, we have a difference in terms here.
Acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality
is never ableist.
Acknowledging intelligence as a
positivequalitycan be ableist, depending on what values are being cast.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality is acknowledging intelligence as a quality.
It’s about how intelligence is framed in relation to others and whether it’s used to dismiss people who might not fit those standards.
So it’s your opinion that the upholding of standards that cannot be met by some individuals by inherent lack of capacity is unacceptable?
Acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality is acknowledging intelligence as a quality.
Here’s an example where it’s not: “Of course you got in, you [are(n’t) Asian/were in the gifted program/have ASD].”
These examples are rare bifecta of ✅ acknowledging intelligence as a positive quality ✅ casting value judgement on those who do or do not fit that quality
Also, “brave”
never thought of it that way, but yeah, lowkey! though it’s definitely in a different class of “insult” when compared to the ones in OP. more passive agression, snide rather than forced.
“You’re not normal! You CAN’T be normal, because then I’ll no longer be THE normal! SHUT UP, THIS IS THE CONDITIONER FOR THE THREAD BY WHICH MY SANITY IS HANGING!”
“how can i have an identity without establishing and then demonizing an outgroup!?!”
