Disgusting euphemisms

[Carnick]

If anyone calls me "differently-abled" again, I'm going to smash their face. Whatever happened to good ol' "handicapped"? That was a fine word, but it got deemed offensive by overly sensitive schmucks. What did it get replaced by? "Disabled." Oh, that's much better! Call me a cripple if you must, but don't use a goddamn sugar coated euphemism. It just makes things much, much worse, and it makes me gag.

And now people tell me I have to refer to blacks as "African Americans," otherwise I sound racist. Doesn't this strike anyone else as a tad hypocritical? Unlike some people, I don't like to divide my Americans up into groups. I refer to an American as a plain old fucking "American," no matter what color. What happens when an "African American" doesn't even live in America, or didn't even come from Africa? Hell, we all came from Africa, so it's a needless title anyway. Of course this also applies to Asian American, and other groups affected by the plague of euphemisms. I use African American as an example because I hear it the most.

Vertically challenged? Developmentally challenged? Physically challenged? Dear God, when is it going to end? Anyone who is human is challenged, period.

[GorillaMan]

My mother informed me recently that new education guidelines mean she can't refer to any of her pupils as 'mixed race' - they're now Children Of Dual Heritage.

[county]

"Shithead" works for me, across the board. It crosses gender and racial and other lines with no problem.

[Gomez]

Well said! I completely agree. Differently abled is particularly grating. Do those who use it genuinely not realise just how patronizing it is?

Also, a poster in a recent thread (I forget whom) brought up the interesting and very valid point that African American is something of a misnomer anyway since it is used exclusively to refer to black people. This completely ignores white South Africans who presumably have to make up their own continent when it comes to filling in census forms and the like.

[SkeptiJess]

My daughter (who has Cerebral Palsy) also loathes "differently abled." She is 16 and so usually uses "disabled" as that is what she's used to; nor does she object to "handicapped." You know which one she really hates, though? "Handicapable." She doesn't like that one at all.

[London_Calling]

Only yesterday I was talking to an African-Cheese eating surrender monkey (cool accent).

[Profane]

Originally Posted by Gomez

Also, a poster in a recent thread (I forget whom) brought up the interesting and very valid point that African American is something of a misnomer anyway since it is used exclusively to refer to black people. This completely ignores white South Africans who presumably have to make up their own continent when it comes to filling in census forms and the like.

I always have to laugh when I hear people like Nelson Mandela referred to as African American.

[Dogzilla]

Nelson Mandela = South African

Charlize Theron = South African

You can't BE an African American until you BECOME an American.

If you're African, regardless of color, you're still an African.

Hello?

[Chanteuse]

I so totally agree with you! One I heard years ago to refer to fat people was "horizontally challenged." AFAIK, this one never caught on. I'm glad, because it made this FAT person want to hurl!

[UrbanChic]

Originally Posted by Carnick

And now people tell me I have to refer to blacks as "African Americans," otherwise I sound racist.

What people are telling you this? I don't use the phrase African American and I'm quite a lovely shade of brown. It is highly unlikely you'd be branded a racist for using the term black. At the very worst, you could possibly be accused of being culturally insensitive and that's a far cry from racist. To the people who would accuse you of being culturally insensitive for using the term black, well, fuck 'em.


Juanita 'Black' Tech

[Fern Forest]

Originally Posted by GorillaMan

My mother informed me recently that new education guidelines mean she can't refer to any of her pupils as 'mixed race' - they're now Children Of Dual Heritage.

If I were her student I would instantly demand my third, forth, fifth, etc. heritage were recognized? I am a person of duodecuple heritage.

[Fern Forest]

I guess I should say not to harass her but make whatever poorly defined point I intended. Hopefully she would report it and policy would change. I really have to work on my activism.

[Malacandra]

Isn't "Disgusting Euphemism" an oxymoron??

(sorry,"oxy-intellectually-challenged")

[MissTake]

My dad's response to people commenting on his disability?

I'm a fucking gimp. Not "specially abled". Not "physically challenged". I'm a gimp.

I love my dad.

[SentientMeat]

I also struggled to see why 'handicapped' was ditched. A handicap is, literally, an extra burden placed on horses so that they cannot run as fast. This is, to me, more dignified and accurate a phrase than all the current alternatives.

[sailor]

Is Aristide an African-American? Is Haiti part of "America"?
Or is he an "African-Haitian"?
And now that he is settling in Africa will he be and "African-American-African"?

South African blacks are "African-Africans"?
Whites in South Africa are "European-Africans"?

If a South African white person settles in the USA is he an "African-American"?
Or a "European-African-American"?

And don't get me started with "Hispanic". If you are of European descent you are white. . . unless you were born in latin America in which case you are Hispanic. . . unless your parents were US citizens in which case you are white. . . unless you can't speak English in which case you are Hispanic. . . unless. . .

[Metacom]

Originally Posted by Fern Forest

If I were her student I would instantly demand my third, forth, fifth, etc. heritage were recognized? I am a person of duodecuple heritage.

As a Mexican-German-English-Irish-Dutch American, I prefer "mutt".

[FisherQueen]

On 'African-American:'

There wasn't anything specifically wrong with 'Negro,' which is just 'black' in Spanish, but it got tied up with a lot of negative connotations, so we ditched it. Fine.

'Colored' had potential, since it acknowledged the wide variety and range of colors. But the racists started using it, and we dropped it. So be it.

'Black' has some flaws, as a term, but it has a long history and everyone knows what it means. It seems to be working okay.

But 'African-American' is just too darned long. No language is ever going to discard a one-syllable word and replace it with a four-syllable word. If we decide to replace 'black' with something else, that's fine- but it had better not take longer to say.

[Malacandra]

Similarly, "The Spastics' Society" changed its name to "Scope", and I promptly started counting under my breath before the word "Scope" became a playground insult. I don't think I reached a hundred.

And I was once mildly puzzled when I heard a news item on the radio about a panic at a zoo involving some people with "learning difficulties". There was a spot of... cognitive dissonance?... in my head between the idea of a public kafuffle and, say, a remedial-reading class, and then the penny dropped. If my prejudices concerning people whose "learning difficulties" are over, say, how to tie shoelaces or eat with a fork, need addressing, then so be it, but obscurantist waffle isn't the way to go about it.

scans the preceding sentence for comma abuse, then decides to let it be

[Mangetout]

Oh, I agree; I always call a spade a... errr... You Know What.

[lissener]

Originally Posted by FisherQueen

But 'African-American' is just too darned long. No language is ever going to discard a one-syllable word and replace it with a four-syllable word. If we decide to replace 'black' with something else, that's fine- but it had better not take longer to say.

Let alone a seven-syllable term.

The first time I heard Jesse Jackson pull this one out, I thought it was stupid. "Black," it seems to me, emphasizes that the difference between races is superficial; skin deep, as it were. "African American" suggests a wider, cultural divide, which I don't think is helpful overall. I still prefer "Black"; whenever I say "African American" I feel like a PC weenie.

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

Originally Posted by LunaSea

I always have to laugh when I hear people like Nelson Mandela referred to as African American.

I guess he should be called an African-African. Meanwhile, Moammar Ghaddafi would be an Non-African-African. No, wait....

[Bippy the Beardless]

Originally Posted by Mayflower

I so totally agree with you! One I heard years ago to refer to fat people was "horizontally challenged." AFAIK, this one never caught on. I'm glad, because it made this FAT person want to hurl!

Wouldn't Horizontally Challenged be a good PC term for a virgin ?

[matt_mcl]

It's not ' PC ' as that term is usually derogatorily understood, but there's a new expression making the rounds that I've complained about before. "Passed," meaning died. I don't mean to bitch at people who are just trying to be nice, but it's an absolutely stupid word, even worse than "passed away."

I was so sorry to hear your father "passed." He didn't "pass," it wasn't the damn SATs, it was glioblastoma multiforme.

Can't you just say "died?" Death is not rude. It happens to everybody. Feel free to dress it up as much as you want ("I was so terribly sorry to hear the sad news.." etc., etc., "...that your father died") but, I mean, really, I bore up his pall, you're not hiding reality from me somehow.

[Shade]

Originally Posted by Bippy the Beardless

Wouldn't Horizontally Challenged be a good PC term for a virgin ?

People who've only been done up against a wall might feel descriminated against.

Seriously, how do, say, news broadcasts, etc, who have chosen to use Af.-Am. meaning "black American" describe black non-Americans apart from "African-American whoops"? "African-Briton", etc would make sense, but I bet they don't.

I suppose the idea would be for people in Africa to be labeled more specifically, say as "South Africans" or "European South Africans" but I'm not really seeing that working...

[GorillaMan]

The English perspective: 'Afro-Caribbean' is the standard term in Britain to describe black immigrants from that region, and their descendents, who make up the majority of black people in this country. Black Americans are just called American, with black used without capitalisation if relevant. 'Hispanic' is hardly ever heard. 'Black British' is a standard term, with capitals, generally accepted by the communities in question: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=459

The other significant difference to American phrases is 'Asian' - here it tends to mean Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan. Japanese, Koreans etc are called by their nationalities, or 'SE Asian'.

[kaylasdad99]

A couple of years ago I picked up a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel and read it. Toward the end, a landing party comes across the remnants of a starship crew that had vanished some fifty years previously. Describing the ethnically diverse crew, the (so-called) author was pleased to call the black woman an "African-American."

Sheesh.

[jeevwoman]

My aunt had Downs Syndrome, and was born back in the day when she was called "retarded." So that is what we called her. She even belonged to the Association of Retarded Citizens (known now as simply The Arc, to avoid the use of retarded).

Of course, it's different if you call someone a 'retard' when they are of normal intelligence and you are using it as an insult, but in general, when referring to someone who actually IS retarded, then I never saw what the problem was. When I refer to my aunt now as retarded, I even feel self-conscious, like I am saying a bad thing by simply describing her. But guess what? First of all, SHE had no idea what the word meant (she was extremely low-functioning) and secondly, she was MY friggin' aunt. I think I am entitled to call her what I want.

And as for having to label children in the school system as one particular race, my mom tells the story of when she had an Israeli in her class. Since my mom was pissed at having to identify what each of the kids were, she marked him down as Asian, since geographically that is what he was. The school system nearly shit itself and said she had to i.d. kids based on "what they looked like." Yeah, that's REALLY p.c!

[yellowval]

I do agree that African-American is a silly term, especially when used in reference to someone from another country.
However, I do believe that the term "Native American" has merit. The term "Indian," of course, should be used to refer to someone who's from India. Calling a Native American an Indian makes as much sense as calling Nelson Mandela an African-American, IMO.

[mascaroni]

Originally Posted by GorillaMan

The English perspective: 'Afro-Caribbean' is the standard term in Britain to describe black immigrants from that region...

It might be the standard term for those who got their jobs from the Situations Vacant columns of 'The Guardian', but no black person that I know has ever described themselves as that and I know that if I referred to them as 'Afro-Caribbean' I would be the subject of intense and remorseless piss-taking.

Of course, this is in the Real World...where the standard term is 'Black'

What Local Authority/Civil Service Department/Quango do you work for GorillaMan?

Or maybe you live in Cornwall...


mascaroni... Anglo-Caucasian trichologically challenged person of uncertain parentage.

[whiterabbit]

What everybody else here said. Especially the whole disabled/handicapped thing. Either of those words seem like okay descriptions. What the hell is wrong with them?

I have a distantlyish related cousin (I'm not sure exactly how) who is mildly retarded. The word "retarded" doesn't make me cringe half as much as the word I'm told her mother used to describe her (undoubtedly in the Dramatic Whisper, you know the one) -- "afflicted." However, she's really come out of her shell in recent years and has a great life. She's learned to read, too, I guess nobody even tried to teach her when she was a kid. *sigh*

And I'm with matt_mcl. Death is a fact of life. My dad died eleven years ago this May. Calling it something else isn't going to make me feel any better about that fact -- I miss him like crazy.

[GorillaMan]

Originally Posted by mascaroni

It might be the standard term for those who got their jobs from the Situations Vacant columns of 'The Guardian', but no black person that I know has ever described themselves as that and I know that if I referred to them as 'Afro-Caribbean' I would be the subject of intense and remorseless piss-taking.

Sorry - I did mean a standard externally-applied term.

What Local Authority/Civil Service Department/Quango do you work for GorillaMan?

None

Or maybe you live in Cornwall...

That'll be what the Location information is for then

[Smeghead]

I knew a white guy from South Africa that described himself as "African-American," which tended to piss people off to no end.

[GorillaMan]

...oh, in any case, it appears The Guardian prefers 'African-Caribbean'. http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide...184844,00.html

[Apricot]

I try to call people what they've expressed a preference to be called.
Therefore, I use black, gay, asian, and indian as what I prefer to say without other input, but I'd rather identify someone else as whatever they say they are. Kind of riding the tide of the people around me. It doesn't really matter to me, just as long as I can figure it out.

Personally, I'm indian, Cherokee, or american indian. The "Native American" pushers forgot to ask the indians what they thought. It's not right to change a people's name to something YOU don't find offensive. That's as offensive as making the term in the first place. White people don't get to decide that anymore.

[Miller]

Originally Posted by matt_mcl

It's not ' PC ' as that term is usually derogatorily understood, but there's a new expression making the rounds that I've complained about before. "Passed," meaning died. I don't mean to bitch at people who are just trying to be nice, but it's an absolutely stupid word, even worse than "passed away."

I was so sorry to hear your father "passed." He didn't "pass," it wasn't the damn SATs, it was glioblastoma multiforme.

Can't you just say "died?" Death is not rude. It happens to everybody. Feel free to dress it up as much as you want ("I was so terribly sorry to hear the sad news.." etc., etc., "...that your father died") but, I mean, really, I bore up his pall, you're not hiding reality from me somehow.

Jesus H. Christ. "Passed" doesn't sound like he died, it sounds like he ate a big bowl of bran flakes, and spent the afternoon on the toilet.

Speaking as a guy who looks like he's shoplifting canned hams in his pants, I'm relieved that "plus-size" never caught on as a euphamism for "fat."

[Thaumaturge]

This is what is known as the 'euphamism treadmill'. It is what happens when a word becomes emotionally charged, and people try to change it without changing reason why it became emotionally charged in the first place. The new word gets the same connotations, and gets changed, until people wake up and realize the whole process is insanely stupid, and a waste of time. If you didn't have a negative image towards the group the word represented in the first place, you wouldn't have a need to change the word to try and steer your thoughts to where they should be.

People try to change their words to change their minds, but it doesn't work like that, and the whole process is doomed to failure. People instinctually realize this, which is why all but the most naiive of us get exasperated with the attempts of the clueless to get us to ride the euphamism treadmill with them.

Just say no to the euphamism treadmill.

[mascaroni]

Fair enough, GorillaMan, I was just pointing out that the Languague of Brent Council Social Services isn't the language that's used in the rest of the country.

I apologise for insulting you by insinuating you might be Cornish...

[GorillaMan]

Originally Posted by mascaroni

Fair enough, GorillaMan, I was just pointing out that the Languague of Brent Council Social Services isn't the language that's used in the rest of the country.

I apologise for insulting you by insinuating you might be Cornish...

LOL...from my sister's experience in Brent, it seems that council know only five words: "We have lost your forms"

[Phèdre nó Delaunay]

I totally agree with everyone who hates "passed". Ugh! My father is dead, not "passed". If he had lived would it mean he "failed"?

[LurkMeister]

I swear I once overheard someone say that a recently deceased relative had been "taken home by the Lord."

[Bill Door]

I see nothing wrong with either the term "black" or "white" just as long as they are used as adjectives, not nouns. It should be black people or white people, not blacks and white. People are not the color of their skins. The only advantage to African-American is that it is a noun, but it's a lot less accurate than describing someone as a black American, or a black Frenchman, or a black African.

As far as the handicapped/disabled/whatever label goes, I'm pretty unconcerned about it either way. Because I can't see very well, I'm able to use the RAMP system in my area, or the Regional Access Mobility Program. It's a cute name for what I prefer to call the crip bus, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

If someone called me "handicapable" though, I'd do my best to beat them to death with my white stick.

[GaWd]

Originally Posted by JuanitaTech

What people are telling you this? I don't use the phrase African American and I'm quite a lovely shade of brown. It is highly unlikely you'd be branded a racist for using the term black. At the very worst, you could possibly be accused of being culturally insensitive and that's a far cry from racist. To the people who would accuse you of being culturally insensitive for using the term black, well, fuck 'em.


Juanita 'Black' Tech

I was once thrown out of a luggage store when retelling a story about a black man who just happened to be a crackhead. He objected to me calling him black(this guy was asian), and started a huge ruckus which in turn caused my friend, the manager to ask both my brother and I to leave.

All that for relaying a humerous Las Vegas panhandler story. I'm still pissed off about the incident!

Sam

[Tars Tarkas]

saying "black people" or "white people" instead of "white" or "black" is redundant and smacks of "you people"

Isn't John Kerry's wife "African American" despite being Portugez?

[Bill Door]

Originally Posted by Tars Tarkas

saying "black people" or "white people" instead of "white" or "black" is redundant and smacks of "you people"

I'm gonna have to say I don't see the redundancy. There are plenty of black things that aren't people, as there are plenty of people who aren't black. We're not talking about round circles here.

As far as the "you people", "black people" is a phrase that, well, could be used by a black person to describe black people, while "you people" is not.

[Ace309]

Daniel Igali is a Nigerian-born freestyle wrestler who defected to Canada and then went on to win the Sydney (2000) Olympics at his weight class.

He was described as the first African-American Canadian to win an Olympic wrestling Gold.

[Punoqllads]

The idea of calling folk African-Americans does have a point to it. It's to emphasize that there is a cultural distinction to them, beyond the color of their skin. Compare it to Italian-American, Jewish-American, or Mexican-American.

Now, Africa obviously has many different cultures within it, but the idea is that those Africans who were forced into slavery here and their descendents developed a culture that is a common link between most black Americans. Feel free to poke holes in this viewpoint, but that's what Jackson was trying to say.

[BiblioCat]

[Smart-Ass]
Can I call myself a "Native American"? My family's been in American for about 150 years. Doesn't that make me a native of America?
[/Smart-Ass]

I actually should use Metacom's suggestion of Mutt. My ancestors are from England, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Norway. My kids have all that plus my husband's Italian, Greek and German heritage.

[Tars Tarkas]

Originally Posted by Bill Door

I'm gonna have to say I don't see the redundancy. There are plenty of black things that aren't people, as there are plenty of people who aren't black. We're not talking about round circles here.

Context would explain what they were talking about. It is a waste of time to add in an extra word.

[Priam]

And I'm a faggot or a queer. Don't try to find polite ways to say this fact and sure as fuck don't tell people I'm "that way". It's a technically correct label and the fact that people sometimes use it as abuse isn't gonna scare this fag off it. Besides, it defangs things so beautifully to just say "Yup!" when someone throws them at you.