In the polls only thread, somebody used the term dribbling imbeciles. It was not directed at anyone specifically. But it got a moderator note saying it was a slur against disabled people.
It seems to me that if that’s the case, there are several other words that face similar restrictions. If we’re not supposed to use the word imbeciles, it seems like words like cretins, dullards, dummies, halfwits, idiots, knuckleheads, morons, nincompoops, and numbskulls would also be on the list. All of these words apply to people with lower intelligence. Lower intelligence can be seen as a mental disability so all of these terms can be seen as slurs against a disabled group.
Is this the case? Are we supposed to avoid using any of these terms? Or are some of the terms I’ve listed acceptable and some are not? If so, what’s the standard?
The context makes a huge difference, IMO. If someone says, “[Politician of your choice] is an imbecile,” that’s pretty different from saying, “Which of these things can an imbecile dribble: pee? Saliva? Basketball?”
The first is insulting the politician. The second is making fun of folks with a severe mental disability. The first isn’t, in my opinion, a problem; the second is pretty obnoxious.
Agreed, though in the context of the referenced poll, it looks like more along the offensive-slur line, vs targeted at politicians. Had some of the answers been “their party line” or some such, I might feel differently.
100%–I was very closely paraphrasing the referenced poll with my “obnoxious” example. Here’s the offending post:
I don’t think so: there, “imbecile” is used to reference the singer, who clearly isn’t someone with a mental impairment, and it’s used in the sense of “fool.” If you say someone’s acting like a fool, you’re not referencing someone with a developmental disability.
That lyric is much closer to “That politician’s an imbecile,” only it’s even less cutting.
And reading back further in the polls thread, I see it is most likely in response to someone using the phrase “dribbling imbecile” as a potential response, and argument about “drivelling” versus “dribbling”.
All in all I do think this specific one was unnecessary.
I think I was criticized by a user (though not a mod) for use of the word “cretin” once. Had to google, and apparently it’s an archaic term for someone with congenital hypothyroidism. I gather it’s fallen into disuse medically, leaving it for just generic insults. So I watch myself with that one, though at the time I felt a snitty bit of “When will the Cretin Caucus and the Pinhead Lobby take action against the Ramones?” but I got over it.
I tend to disagree. If I said something like “Donald Trump is a retard” I would expect to receive a warning for it. Not because I was expressing negative opinions about Trump (that’s pretty safe on this board) but because I was using the word retard as a negative slur.
So the question is whether the same principle applies if I say “Donald Trump is an imbecile”.
I recall reading somewhere that in the 19th century it was considered a medical term.
IIRC there was a scale: morons, imbeciles, and idiots. Those with an IQ of 0 to 25 were called idiots, 26 to 50 were called imbeciles and 51 to 70 were called morons. Morons could communicate and learn common tasks; imbeciles stalled mentally at about six years old; and idiots couldn’t respond to stimulus or communicate with any level of competency.
But of course now it’s just a pejorative, and we should probably avoid it.
“Retard” isn’t (as a pejorative) a word with a semantic context divorced from slurs about the disabled. “Imbecile” is.
Of course context matters, and of course you’re not going to get a banned/allowed words list any more than the last twenty people who started threads like this did.
Well, I searched the meaning and got this meaning of the word as a noun: “A person of subnormal intelligence.” That definitely includes the mentally disabled.
On the other hand, I searched and got this meaning of the word as an adjective: “Devoid of good sense or judgment”, which seams to avoid targeting the mentally disabled.
Far be it for me to speak for them, but I think the general sense is that “dribbling imbeciles” is clearly heeheeing at disabled folks without full control of their autonomic functions, and that it’s not cool to make jokes like that.
I was pretty surprised to see that mod note, and I don’t agree with it. The primary definition of imbecile in Merriam-Webster is “a foolish or stupid person.”
Granted, the second usage defines it as “a person affected with moderate intellectual disability”, and says that it is offensive, but it also states that this use is “dated.”
Er, the term “handicapped” is offensive:
“Note that ‘handicapped’ is an outdated and unacceptable term to use when referring to individuals or accessible environments.”
Well said, and I completely agree. It would be shockingly inappropriate to ban the use of “imbecile” and similar words in the first case, insulting politicians or celebrities. It is of course always possible to denigrate some celebrity in more formal terms, but it would destroy the casual and lively spirit of the board. I for one don’t want to see a community where every post sounds like an essay for Miss Manners’ high school English class.
In our continuing series on The Case of the Ambiguous Pronoun, aka The Mystery of the Unknown Antecedent, I present this example where “one” might refer either to the post in question, or to the mod note about it, leaving the reader flummoxed.
Of course, “imbecile” as a technical term was replaced by “retarded” because imbecile became used generic pejorative and “retarded” wasn’t a word with such history.
