Friday, June 17, 2011

The Euphemism Treadmill - replacing the "R-Word"

Stephen Pinker in his 2003 book “The Blank Slate” coined the name euphemism treadmill for the process whereby words introduced to replace an offensive word, over time become offensive themselves. A current example of this is mental retardation.

The word itself comes from the Latin retardare meaning “to make slow, delay or hinder”.

Retardation was first used in the psychiatric sense in 1895, and eventually replaced older terms – once neutral themselves – like moron, imbecile, idiot, feeble-minded and cretin. Each of these terms had a specific meaning as to severity and age of development (cretinism for example referred to severe congenital hypothyroidism) but these meanings often differed between countries. The new term was subdivided into degrees of mild, moderate and severe mental retardation. These new technical terms were no doubt welcomed by those affected, as the previous names were being used as derogatory insults (as indeed they still are).

By the 1960s when I was in grade school, the same process had occurred with retardation. “Retard” was a common playground insult, as in “Look where yer goin’, ya retard!”  To us at the time it was considered harmless fun (although I now recognize the potential to really hurt someone who did have an intellectual disability). In Grade 7 my buddy Doug and I did impersonations of “retarded chipmunks” in which we tucked our lower lip inside our upper front teeth and crossed our eyes.

Since that time retardation has been gradually replaced by a variety of more acceptable (at least for now) terms including mentally handicapped, mentally impaired, mentally challenged, intellectually challenged, intellectually disabled, learning disabled, and developmentally disabled. The last two of course are broader terms that include other conditions not covered by the meaning of mental retardation.

The term retardation is also associated in the minds of many with the period of time in which people with intellectual disabilities (the term I will use) were abused, discriminated against and locked away from society. While this is not the fault of the word, a change in terminology will help us put that period of history behind us.

These changes are still taking place. It wasn’t until 2006 that the American Association on Mental Retardation changed their name to American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. There is currently a bill before the Saskatchewan Legislature to expunge the “R-word” from provincial government statutes; the passing of Bill 625 will make Saskatchewan the first jurisdiction in Canada to do so.

The trend is to increasingly distance the names from the conditions. The Saskatchewan Council for Crippled Children and Adults, formed in 1950, became, in 1984, the Saskatchewan Abilities Council  – a perfect example of looking at the full half of the glass. The Canadian Association for Community Living is an organization dedicated to advancing human rights of people with intellectual disabilities, and is a member of the international organization Inclusion International. These names go even further  – focusing on the goal rather than the disabilities (but don’t tell you much about them when you come across them in the phone book). Their websites didn't say so, but I suspect these are also recent name changes.

Will these new terms, like intellectually disabled or intellectually challenged, also be deemed offensive at some later date and require yet another euphemistic replacement? Perhaps, following the trend noted in the previous paragraph, “disabilities” will give way to “challenges”. But one thing in their favor is they don’t lend themselves as readily to insults. I can’t quite imagine children taunting each other with “Look where yer goin’, ya challenge!”

63 comments:

  1. Excellent treatment of a touchy subject. You can expect to hear from Kylee-Anne on this.

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  2. Dad's right, you'll hear from me. It's a topic I think about a lot, and I've been a big fan of the "Spread the Word to End the Word" campaign (http://www.r-word.org/). The good thing about this campaign is that while it educates people about how harmful the r word can be, it also shows how harmful negatively using any term about people with intellectual disabilities or even any other group of people can be (check out this great ad: http://youtu.be/T549VoLca_Q).

    Unfortunately, even the new euphemisms can be used insultingly. e.g. "What are you, Challenged?" or "What are you, Special?" The insult "Sped" comes from one of those euphemisms: special education. But that's what I like about the non-euphemistic "intellectually disabled" or even better, "people with intellectual disabilities." They seem more plainly factual than euphemistic, and the latter emphasizes the person first rather than the disability.

    Which reminds me of the other good thing about the R-Word campaign. As you point out, "mentally retarded" was introduced as a kinder, euphemistic term to replace the negative (but once neutral) terms "idiot" or "moron." Idiot and moron are still used as insults now, although they no longer have the direct connotation of mental disability. The R-word campaign is seeking to eradicate the negative use of the word "retard" all together. If they were to succeed, "retard" would be used in English once again only to refer to slowness (as it is still used in music, although with the emphasis on the second syllable). Rather than seeking to simply replace the negative word with a more neutral term, they are looking to remove the negative connotation all together.

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    1. No, they are not trying to remove the negative connotation (from the "r" word")...they are trying to remove the word entirely (from usage). Go see what happened to the "n" word. It has a completely different meaning...one that could still be used. Unfortunately, you can't. The same goes for the "f" (homosexual) word...
      Some people can't and/or don't want to bother to differentiate the "r" word (put it into context). They just want people to not use it and want to remove it entirely from our lexicon.

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  3. By the way, thanks for this post--you must have done a lot of research for it!

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  4. Thanks for the feedback - I was hoping this would initiate a discussion. Thanks Ky for the campaign link - I remember you and your sisters sharing this on FB a few weeks ago but couldn't find it. I want this blog to be educational as well as entertaining. I confess most of the "research" on the R-word came from two pages on Wikipedia, including the reference from Pinker's book (so I hope it's accurate). I hadn't thought of the musical term - so yes we want to preserve that meaning of the word. The only other use of the word I have noted is on the signs as you drive into a small town warning truckers not to use their engine retarder brakes.
    Ky - I like your phrase "people with intellectual disabilities" which focuses on the person not the disability. The same applies to physical conditions, as in "people with diabetes" rather than "diabetics" (to remind doctors that they are treating a person not a disease).

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  5. We have always gone with, 'our son has a chronic case of acute individuality...do you have a problem?'

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  6. Personally, i believe retarded sounds better than challenged... i mean, who wants to have a challenge they can never overcome, that would make me feel awful. Making something "sound better", doesn't mean it is better. I would rather have a medical condition, being retarded that is, then always think i just can't overcome something. The word, "retarded" is the excuse... at least retarded people have an excuse, they are retarded... so what's the rest of the world's excuse? None. They are the real challenged ones.

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  7. Our society has become so fixed on making bad things sound good. What would you rather have, the bitter truth or a sweet lie? I know which one I would pick.

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  8. "Retard" has the infelicitous feature of an -ard ending in common with dastard, bastard...

    http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=-ard&allowed_in_frame=0

    -ARD
    "also -art, from O.Fr. -ard, -art, from Ger. -hard, -hart "hardy," forming the second element in many personal names, often used as an intensifier, but in Middle High German and Dutch used as a pejorative element in common nouns, and thus passing into Middle English in bastard, coward, blaffard ("one who stammers"), etc. It thus became a living element in English, e.g. buzzard, drunkard."

    I love your blog and just finished reading all entries, so many thanks.

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  9. Thanks Teleophonema for pointing out the significance of the word ending. Glad you found my blog and enjoyed the posts. You read them all? Wow! And thanks for telling me so.

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  10. Give up. No matter what euphemism you use, it will become a playground insult. Besides, it sounds worse when you use euphemisms, because the very use of euphemism indicates shamefulness.

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  11. Perhaps the movement to replace the R word with something more like "intellectual disability" is less a euphemism (using a nicer sounding word for something unpleasant) than it is "more plainly factual than euphemistic" as Ky pointed out above.

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    1. Hi Stan, I found your blog through Google after having this very discussion with some of my Karate students last night. I find the whole "First letter Hyphen word" syndrome fascinating. For example, instead of saying Retard, you say the "R-Word". Everyone does it. If you mean to say retard, say retard. Saying "The R-Word" in my mind is worse. It says to me "I really want to say Retard but am petrified to offend anyone so I will say the R-Word so everyone gets my meaning but I don't actually have to utter the sounds." To me, this is harmful to the entire population. We focus so much on the actual word, but we never strive to correct the underlying problem.

      Having said all that, I must say that your treatment of the subject seems to me to be intellectual and informative without being demeaning. I believe in candor, goodwill and intelligence. Once you have those, you should be able to discuss anything in a positive way. I will check back with you for other posts.

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    2. Thanks for your comments JS - I agree with all your points. I think I was using "R-Word" not because I was afraid to say retard but to gently mock those who are. Similar to the use of "the O-Word" a few years ago when the International Olympic Committee was suing anyone who used the word "Olympic" for any commercial purpose.

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  12. As a disabled person myself, I'm not a fan of political correctness, specifically because euphemisms perpetuate "otherness".

    I have OCD. I hear the word "crazy" used in everyday speech dozens of times per day... and I don't get offended. Why? It's an affliction! There is something derogatory about being "crazy". Likewise, the reason why the euphemism treadmill exists is because mental retardation is an affliction. We need to move beyond Post Modernism, and start thinking about the context of what we're saying.

    If I'm having an episode, and someone who doesn't know me says "Man, you're crazy" I tell them, "Yeah, I have OCD." If they were being malicious, they apologize and we're good. If they were being rhetorical then there's no harm done. Stifling expression doesn't eliminate the thought being expressed. You deal with the person's intentions.

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  13. I find that you did amazing resolution the moment when you picked out this theme of this article of yours here. Do you usually create your blog posts by yourself or maybe you have a partner or a helper?

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  15. "But one thing in their favor is they don’t lend themselves as readily to insults. I can’t quite imagine children taunting each other with 'Look where yer goin’, ya challenge!'"

    I question that. In school there were a group of kids who went to "special education" classes. You might think "special education students" doesn't lend itself easily to mockery but you'd be wrong, as "sped" was soon used to describe those students. Kids could easily refer to "challenged students" as "Chals," for example, and everyone would know what was meant.

    Any word can be used negatively or positively. These words only have power over us if we let them.

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  16. "Fool", specifically "natural fool" or "born fool" used to be a legal term. Chapter 9 of the British statute of 1324, cited as 17 Edward II, read as follows:
    "The King shall have custody of the lands of natural fools, taking the profits of them without waste or destruction, and shall find them their necessaries of life, of whose Fee forever the lands be holden. And after death of such idiots, he shall render it to the right heirs, so that such idiots shall not aliene nor their heirs shall be disinherited."
    See also #4 under "fool" in the OED, also cited here.

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  17. Ky and the R-Word.org crowd are the PC Police. Stop assaulting my rights by attempting to eradicate words that you find offensive. Stan is too nice.

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    1. "PC" is just a right wing euphemism for "not an asshole"

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    2. Close. "PC" is a right wing euphemism for "bully".

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  18. For a long time I have heard people jokingly tell others that that "Aww you are very special" with a very strong emphasis on the 'special'.

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  19. >they don’t lend themselves as readily to insults.

    You must be intellectually disabled if you believe this.

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    1. You are absolutely right! I have had that delusion corrected. Kids (and some adults) will find a way to make an insult from anything that is different.
      Stan

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  20. Ten years ago or so people were trying to bring back "differently abled", a term coined in 1981 apparently. I find that euphemism hard to swallow. It's so far from being straight-forward it sounds ridiculously pretentious. We're approaching Victorian levels of beating around the bush now. People have to realize that society hasn't progressed enough in regards to the stigmas attached to the disabilities themselves, let alone the words for them. Until people stop being creeped out by anybody different, every new term is going to become an insult until we have to invent new words entirely. Or maybe the treadmill is more like a hamster wheel and when it comes full circle in a few centuries people will be "lame" and "moronic" again.

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  21. Euphemisms are commonly used to spare distress or pain but of course there are always exceptions to the rule as in everything. Great post.
    I will link it to my blog today as this is my word of the day.

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  22. This entry MUST have been written by a "special" child. Maybe a SPED-Monkey? Are you a bit challenged? Well, whatever your intellectual challenges, I'll award you the Gold Medal of the Special Olympics for blog postings!!

    I've heard all of the above insults more than a few times, even the current US president referenced the special Olympics in a joking and degrading manner.

    I think the Euphemism treadmill is 100% real, in 50 years all the current terms will have been thrown aside. The only way to avoid this is to be so general and positive that a layman doesn't even know what you are talking about, but then this leads to confusion as well. For example, they renamed the program for gifted children at my local school and no longer call it the "Gifted Program" because people began assuming it was for intellectually challenged kids and children didn't want to go to it for that very reason. Now it is called Apogee.

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  23. Here is a recent comment on political correctness. The writer makes the point that it is the disrespect for the "things" not the name we use for them that is important. The euphemism treadmill does not solve the root problem.
    http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/01/political-correctnes-how-censorship-defeats-itself/

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  25. The very people that perpetuate these "bad" words and phrases in a negative connotation are the same people that will be delighted that others are still offended by it.

    Fighting their use just fans the flames.

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    1. It’s possible that, as you suggest, a few people who delight in offending others will respond to an effort to reduce the use of “retarded” by gleefully using it more. But the education movement is more aimed at those who use the word without realizing why it is offensive and are more likely to change.

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  26. Don't mean to be picky but you change your profile to read 'I've been married'.

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  27. Sorry, I missed out the 'can'.

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  28. Actually, I've already seen these new terms used as insults, eg "You must be mentally challenged" or sometimes just "You're mental" as well as "Well aren't you SPESHAL" and "Do you have a reading disability or something?" and the perennial "Look at the aspy" // "You must have a special kind of autism."

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  29. My secondary school here, on the other side of the world, was considered educationally progressive in the mid 80s. We had a separate unit, including classrooms, which offered schooling for the intellectually or educationally disadvantaged. This was officially titled the "special needs unit". And, the top insult in the "regular" school was "special". So, yes, children will taunt with whatever you give them. Stephen Pinker is correct.

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  30. A woman at our church was pushed out for what I think was being too bossy for some. But this sounds pretty vague. As the movement against her built, a specific accusation was that she failed to refrain from using the word "retarded" when talking about people with intellectual challenges. However, as she pointed out (to no effect), her brother was intellectually challenged and as a young person she was taught that "retarded' was the PC term, used to replace the once-clinical "moron."

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  31. On common characteristic of euphemisms is that they are almost always much lengthier and complex than the term that they replace. "Executive assistant" instead of "secretary", Director of First Impressions" replacing "Receptionist", Sanitation Engineer", etc. In my opinion we should just call a spade a manually-operated soil-disturbing appliance.

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  32. Good point. And in the same vein, what would you call a manure fork?

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  33. Just call it a manure fork and ignore the PC crowd who will try to rename it. We need to get off the euphemism treadmill and create a culture of honesty so we can have fruitful discussions instead of being distracted by semantics.

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  34. You missed my little joke (was I too subtle?) Using the same formula, a manure fork would become a manually operated shit-disturbing appliance.

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  35. I think this discussion is pointing to the fact that certain terms for people ("labels") tend to make those people (and/or those who care about them) feel bad, particularly when used by someone who is trying to get that result. To some degree, this is often not so much a "word problem" but a "people problem": there are people with poor self-esteem or hypersensitive, and there are people who are cruel or insensitive.

    Another aspect of this is that changing the terms for things does not change what they are, so although changing the words for things may help somewhat, it should not be mistaken for "the answer"--people who want to turn disabilities into insults will still do so.

    Somewhat related...
    I grew up reading a lot of older literature from the American South. In that context, the "N-word" was used completely innocently, and in my teenage years (practically overnight) it went from being just inconsiderate to being "fighting words". I soon learned a lot about the difference between what you intend and how people "read" you, and in the years since, have reflected on the way words and phrases are used as weapons, and as identity indicators for oneself and for others. I've become aware of how we are awash in a sea of the words of others, particularly since the advent of social media and portable devices. The dynamics are very complex, and it's hard to say how any given situation should be described.

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    1. I'd strenuously dispute that the N-word was "used completely innocently" in that context -- the N-word was understood to be a vulgar term even in the Antebellum South. That's why it wasn't used in formal writing for legal documents, court decisions, etc.

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    2. What I was thinking of was Huck Finn and his relationship with Jim. One of my college lit profs pointed out all the ways that Huck loved Jim, even saying it was obvious that Clemens was describing a sexual relationship. There was a good debate about the sex part, but no doubt as to the respect, friendship, and trust.

      The use of the N-word there did not seem malicious, to me, on either Finn's part or Clemens' part. But that's just me. Do you see something different?

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  36. Exactly. There are a zillion ways to make people feel put down that have nothing to do with words.
    Example: in an exaggeratedly nice tone, say, "you know, you're opinion is VERY important to me. I will be sure to consider it carefully", while using exaggerated body language to convey sincerity. Anyone who is not autistic will know exactly what you mean.

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  37. I question the use of "challeneged" ("mentally challenged", "intellectually challenged") in this context. It's euphemistic to the point of semantic fuzziness. I'm intellectually challenged every day at work by the problems I have to solve. I want to be, or the work wouldn't be interesting. Something like "disabled" or Stan's "person with a disability" seems more precise.

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  38. People who want us to stop using pejorative terms like 'retarded' are well-meaning. But we face a dilemma, with no easy option:

    1. The problem with giving in to the euphemism treadmill is that you will constantly, until you die, have to "keep up" with the new euphemism (and not just for mental issues, but race, class, gender, sexuality, etc., etc.).

    2. The problem with giving up on the euphemism treadmill is those on the treadmill will constantly, until you die, call you bad names like "racist", "ableist", "insensitive", "hurtful," "problematic."

    What's a guy to do? For me, being a sensitive and loving person, I'd prefer not to be called bad names. On the other hand, being rational person, I'd rather not torture language for no good reason for the rest of my life.

    Conclusion: I elect to camp out on a perfectly good, descriptive, semantically accurate term (like 'retarded') and let the treadmillers call me names. After all, if they call me pejorative names like "bigot", I can just ask them to stop using pejorative words.

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  39. I find it unacceptable to insult anyone based on their IQ; thus idiot, cretin, etc. are all out.
    People use these words instead of "bigot"; well to be a bigot is your choice. If someone really is a bigot then they deserve the name. No-one chooses their IQ.

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    1. Except you're implicitly presuming that IQ is a purely "nature" determined characteristic. There's ample evidence that humans can boost their IQs through study and mental exercises, so I see no problem with insulting people who fail to make that effort.

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  40. I agree with you if you are talking about people with deficits so large they can't be assumed to be aware of how much smarter other people are than they.

    However, there are people who certainly deserve those appellations--e.g., the people who are undeservedly impressed with their own knowledge and intelligence.

    Sadly, some of them are rich and/or famous, so they parade their idiocy far and wide.

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  41. Here is another essay on euphemisms by one of my favorite language authors, John McWhorter.
    https://aeon.co/essays/euphemisms-are-like-underwear-best-changed-frequently

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  42. Hey, check it out, I'm a challenged chipmunk. >.<

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  43. Just another way for people to feel important, by forcing others to use "their" word. I worked for years as a baker and when you are in a hot, humid climate, often the dough rises faster than you can get to it; so you put it in a retarder. This is the opposite of a proof box and makes the dough rise slower; it retards the process. Perfectly well-meaning people are being bullied by word police who are simply ignorant of what words mean. People don't know what "racist" means, yet throw it around; attaching their own moronic, made-up definition. People don't know "nigger" was simply an Anglicized (mis)pronunciation of "negro"; which simply means "black" and get all offended about it. Nobody should be required to cater to other people's ignorance and capitulate to social bullies.

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    1. Of course no one can outright FORCE you to stop using a certain word, but if you knew that something you were doing was deeply hurtful to someone else, wouldn't you *want* to stop hurting them? Doesn't continuing to hurt someone when you've been informed they're hurting make YOU a bully? I'm not going to approach "retarder" as that sounds like a technical term in the vein of "retardant" which I've never seen most serious people ask people to stop using, but let's use a metaphor (it's not one-to-one but whatever).

      Let's say someone has a large pallet of wood that they happen to set on your foot. When you tell them that they've sat it on your foot and hurt you, they tell you you're ignorant and they don't need to be controlled by the "placement police" because they absolutely had to put it in the exact place your foot was for their project nearby. You might continue by asking them to move it so you can remove your foot and telling them that maybe they could have waited until your foot was not there and they say you're a bully trying to control what they do with their own lumber.

      This sounds outrageous because it's clearly an exchange that would likely never happen, but suddenly when it's about words it's no longer as outrageous and is definitely something that happens (maybe even a downright common exchange). What makes the two scenarios so different?

      The n word may have a denotation of "mispronunciation of word that means 'black'" (which I think most people who have paid attention in history class know), but it's the connotation that's been attached to it through years of derogatory use that makes it a slur. Just because something may or may not have previously been a technical or innocuous term, that doesn't mean it can't take on an extremely offensive connotation, one that causes deep hurt to those it is used against.

      It can be deeply hurtful to someone to use a slur, but apparently "not wanting to be hurt" is now simply wanting to "feel important". You must be fun at parties.

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    2. You make a good point: it's important to society that people consider each other's feelings.
      However, Mr. the-n-word-is-not-inherently-racist is part of our society that is reacting to this:

      https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjxv_vYlu7XAhUEsFQKHZ0mBpoQFggwMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fpolitics%2Farchive%2F2015%2F09%2Fthe-rise-of-victimhood-culture%2F404794%2F&usg=AOvVaw1709hde89uCZZwZFMlQc-9

      There is real social power in pointing out injustice, and what our grumpy friend is complaining about is that there are parts of society where, due to that social power, you actually CAN be forced to stop using a word--threatened with such dire consequences for using it that could be called coercive. Someone could organize an online mob to harass, defame, or "dox" you; the same kinds of pressure could be applied to your present employer (and any future employer) to effectively deprive you of your right to earn a living.

      This is a significant contributor to Donald Trump's appeal; many people are seeing him as a corrective to a good thing (sensitivity) which has gone too far.

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  44. On a side note. In German schoolyards "You victim! is very common as an insult for a couple of years now.
    It shows just as the other examples, maybe stronger, that language is not about words, but about meaning. You can use any words to express a meaning, it is simple. The problem of the people driving the euphemism threadmill is that they believe words themselves are more than tools. That they can be good and evil.
    Which is entirely bonkers. I can easily put an incredibly racist demagogic call for genocide in the sweetest, politically correctest words - no big deal.

    But in Berlin a man got physically assaulted because he quoted Martin Luther King word for word. (taz-Kongress 2013)

    That is the actual sad part. Hollowing out language so much that it's not about meaning anymore. Just about words.

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