In some circles, the word special is used to describe the mentally disabled – or, for those of generations past, the retarded. I’ve heard kids tease each other by calling others “special,” or describing something as “special” in the same context that they would sarchasticaly use “retarded”.
I think special is going to be the “gay” of the 2000s; a word with a meaning that will change radically as time goes on, with the old meaning either forgotten or thought of as a quaint anachronism.
Are there any other words that you see as chaving meanings that would change significantly in the next 50 to 100 years?
Although I have heard special used the way you describe, it was only by my fellow peers in our early highschool days. I really don’t see special changing the way you suggest.
I don’t think the OP means “Special” is going to be a new word to describe a homosexual person…
I think they mean “special” will be (mis)used like “gay” as in “You sold my girlfriend slavery? That’s so gay.” In the sense of “not a good thing”.
I don’t think it will happen, because “special” has too many soft sounds… “Gay” has that throat popping “G-” at the beginning and is one syllable… special really only lends itself to a sing-song mockery… certainly not appropriate for all situations.
Oh man. I always called differently abled people “special” because it just seemed like a relatively nice thing to call them, plus my mom called them that, and I always thought it seemed like a sensitive way to describe them without the sort of PC-ish “differently abled” moniker. Crap, now it’s a slur? Damn.
I don’t know if this is that new. We used “special” in the derogatory sense (accompanied with wheeling motions) in 7th and 8th grade. This would be in 1988.
Hmmm… I read the OP more as referring to the way that “gay” used to mean lighthearted and frivolous, but now is fairly exclusively used to refer to homosexuals. In a like manner, “special” may come to refer solely to the (mentally) disabled.
I don’t know about a slur, though I’m sure it’s used as one, but it does strike me as a bit nauseating. As far as I’m concerned, forget “sensitive.” Go for “polite.” I doubt too many people are deeply offended by “disabled,” really. Avoid “differently abled” and the like. Ick. Or I will run over you with my scooter repeatedly!
Uhhhhh…Never seen Welcome to the Dollhouse(1995), huh? People have been using “special” in a sarcastic sense (to mean mentally disabled) for a decade or more already. Seeing as it hasn’t really caught on in a big way, I don’t think it’s going to.
Yeah, special has had a negative meaning for some time now. When I was in grade 11 (1994-95), I took a course called “Math 11 Special”. This was the more advanced than honours course for the super over-achievers. However, every single time we had a substitute, they seemed to be shocked to discover that they weren’t teaching a class for the school’s “special” students. I also remember an episode of Roseanne from around the same period or a bit earlier that revolved around DJ’s school thinking that he was “special”, resulting in my family using the phrase “special as in DJ special” to this day. I can’t say I’ve noticed if the negative meaning of special has become more prevalent lately, but I don’t think it’s in any danger of supplanting the original meaning any time soon.
“Special” is just too commonly used in the traditional sense of being superior or unique. Even if it were to fall out of current use, it would appear too frequently in old books, movies, etc. to be easily forgotten. There is also no English synonym for “special” that carries the same connotations, so unless a new word appears to take its place its unlikely to lose its traditional meaning altogether – although use of the word as an insult may still increase.
“Gay” has carried the connotation of sexual licentiousness since at least the Victorian Era. Sure, it was also often used to mean “merry” or “brightly colored” with no hint of sexual impropriety, but even then it often suggested “silly” or “flamboyant”. It wasn’t a big stretch to go from that to “stereotypical male homosexual”. Remember that “gay” used to be considered a fairly derogatory term for male homosexuals, something like “fairy”. It was the reclaimation of the word by homosexual men as something they called themselves and each other with pride that cemented the popular meaning of the word. It didn’t hurt that there were also plenty of other words that could be substituted for other meanings of “gay”, and no other casual term for homosexual men. It was either the clinical-sounding “homosexual”, vague euphemisms, or insults.