# The slovening of medical terminology **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 13, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923 "2025-01-13T18:37:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/1 "2025-01-13T18:37:22Z")
Now, I realize most English speakers are only semi-literate at best. Yet, I manage to get stabby when people throw around terms like narcissist, autistic, or ADHD out of laziness. Narcissists are not merely stubborn, or selfish, or duplicitous. They are **amoral**. Whole different level, okay? Autism is a diagnosis, for fuck’s sake. It’s not being arty, or childish, or having poor coping skills. ADHD is a systemic executive function disorder, it isn’t mere disorganization or personal messiness. And while I’m at it, _ **gaslighting** _. Which once had a very specific meaning, a situation in which one person manipulated another into believing, not their own senses and experience, but the information the first person fed them. Now it’s just lying. Or just bad treatment. And I’m sure there’s more in the slovening mill I’m just not remembering. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/2 "2025-01-13T19:01:15Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > And while I’m at it, _ **gaslighting** _. Which once had a very specific meaning, a situation in which one person manipulated another into believing, not their own senses and experience, but the information the first person fed them. Now it’s just lying. Or just bad treatment. It’s worse than that. On social media, the term “gaslighting” is continually used by cranks and denialists to dismiss unwelcome evidence that debunks their delusions. Don’t like to hear about sleaze committed by Trumpites, or facts about science and health? Just screech “gaslighting!”; that’ll cover it. 🤪 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/3 "2025-01-13T19:03:16Z")
The gaslighting thing bothers me. Someone simply lying to you is not trying to gaslight you, they’re just lying. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/4 "2025-01-13T20:14:28Z")
I sympathize greatly with the OP. But I am not sanguine about such a complaint making any difference at all. It’s much worse than illiteracy, it is willful and pervasive ignorance and lack of respect for facts. Any degradation of language for the purpose of making money (i.e. advertising) or increasing one’s power and influence (i.e. politics) will be stronger than any attempts to prevent it. Other sloppy usage of terms in popular discourse will also advance, but more slowly. There are bulwarks, for the instances mentioned, in medicine and law, that at least push back. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/5 "2025-01-13T20:32:53Z")
I agree with the OP, despite the insulting opening sentence. As for the term gaslighting, I think one should be required to have seen the film in order to us it. I’m not sure why it suddenly gained traction in the last few years but ferfecksake, don’t say it if you don’t know what it means. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/6 "2025-01-13T20:41:30Z")
It may even be more pernicious than that. Some folks intentionally misuse terms to diminish the negative effects of how a word is perceived. The OP names medical terms, but more troublesome in my view tend to be the political ones. Take for instance the word ‘fascist’ or ‘fascism’. I would imagine that most reading this understand those terms to refer to a certain political ideology with very particular elements. When I hear talking heads _intentionally_ misusing words like this I see red. I saw my in-laws during the holidays, and was appalled to hear my SIL refer to a neighbor that she disliked as a “fascist”. I actually stopped her narrative to ask what she meant by that word because she had used it in the context of a neighbor yelling at their kids and dogs in the back yard. She indicated it means _someone you can’t stand that acts like an a-hole_. 😬 I know where she probably got it from - watching Fox. There you can hear the word bandied about daily by blonde airheads when referring to people they find disagreeable. Sad. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/7 "2025-01-13T20:53:15Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](#): > > I agree with the OP, despite the insulting opening sentence. I don’t know what you mean by insulting. I was using slovening to mean to dirty, to degrade, Perhaps a bit creative. I wasn’t insulting medical terminology, if that’s what you meant. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/8 "2025-01-13T20:58:10Z")
For whatever reason I watched the move as a child, and have long been aware of the concept. I have been shocked at how rapidly and widely use of the term has expanded in the past couple of years. I have long decried the conflation of moods and personalities with the diagnoses of mental pathologies. IMO, many (not all) mental health providers are complicit in overdiagnosing people with ADHD, depressed, anxious, on the spectrum, etc. Many people self diagnose, and many practitioners readily accept and treat for those self diagnosed conditions. Not entirely unreasonable, given the business constraints on modern health care, and the nature of mental conditions which are diagnosed largely on subjective reports. I’m not saying anxious, depressed, whatever folk could not benefit from assistance, understanding, and accommodations - whether they experience a pathology or not. **Ulfreida** - I suspect the perceived insult concerned “semi-literate” ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/9 "2025-01-13T21:03:13Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The gaslighting thing bothers me. Someone simply lying to you is not trying to gaslight you, they’re just lying. And trying to harass you consistently to the extent of personal harm. As a side question: if it was 1875 and Charles Boyer had stripped you of your friends, your assets, and your very rights as a human being… if Ingrid Bergman had a cocked Webley firmly wedged against the center of his forehead and pulled the trigger… would you be the person on the jury that would insist that she be hanged…? Perhaps she was an artist and was merely painting the wall behind him with his brains… ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/10 "2025-01-13T21:06:27Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I don’t know what you mean by insulting. I was using slovening to mean to dirty, to degrade, Perhaps a bit creative. I wasn’t insulting medical terminology, if that’s what you meant. Wait, it’s cool for _you_ to be “creative” in your language use (i.e. “slovening”) but when others do so, they’re semi-literate? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/11 "2025-01-13T21:14:39Z")
I’m seriously tired of trying to keep up with terms people use to describe their afflictions, quirks and the fact they need an excuse not to be successful or happy in this life. We all have issues and needs. But propriety suggests you _suck it up, buttercup_ and deal the best you can. Why do people think I need to care about what their problems are? Unless amongst family and close associates\* no one else needs to know your dyslexia makes your life tough. Yeah, guess what? I’m _triggered_ by you(no one particular)constantly needing a stranger to know you have a problem. (\* I consider the Dope to be close associates) ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/12 "2025-01-13T21:31:10Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Now, I realize most English speakers are only semi-literate at best. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > I don’t know what you mean by insulting. I was using slovening to mean to dirty, to degrade, Perhaps a bit creative. I wasn’t insulting medical terminology, if that’s what you meant. You insult all the English speakers on an American message board and you don’t know what I mean? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/13 "2025-01-13T21:34:18Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Autism is a diagnosis, for fuck’s sake. It’s not being arty, or childish, or having poor coping skills. So what do we think of [those who diagnose themselves as autistic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-maybe-im-autistic/999901)? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/14 "2025-01-13T21:43:49Z")
You realize that terms have non-diagnostic meanings? A “narcissist” was a narcissist a _long_ time before it was a diagnostic term. The diagnostic term was borrowed from the common language. And it works both ways - if I call myself somewhat OCD, for example, that would imply I have characteristics of OCD, not necessarily a diagnosis. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/15 "2025-01-13T22:41:41Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](#): > > You insult all the English speakers on an American message board and you don’t know what I mean? “Most” English speakers. It’s right there in what you quoted. Of course she didn’t mean YOU. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/16 "2025-01-13T22:57:00Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > She indicated it means _someone you can’t stand that acts like an a-hole_. 😬 I know where she probably got it from - watching Fox. There you can hear the word bandied about daily by blonde airheads when referring to people they find disagreeable. Sad. Or on the more liberal parts of the internet, where everything a Republican does is fascist. ---
**Author:** ![Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mundane_super_hero/32/6304_2.png) [@Mundane\_Super\_Hero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mundane_Super_Hero)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/17 "2025-01-13T23:09:22Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > There you can hear the word bandied about daily by blonde airheads when referring to people they find disagreeable. “We got the bubble-headed bleached-blonde, comes on at five She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye It’s interesting when people die Give us dirty laundry…” [- Don Henley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwgJgTL5JmE) ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/18 "2025-01-13T23:37:40Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > **Ulfreida** - I suspect the perceived insult concerned “semi-literate” Oh! Well, I didn’t mean any of YOU of course. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/19 "2025-01-14T00:14:05Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Autism is a diagnosis, for fuck’s sake. It’s not being arty, or childish, or having poor coping skills. This is, of course, true. But it’s also true that having a diagnosis for a recognized psychological condition means that a student gets special accommodations at school, ranging from extended time on tests up to potentially a dedicated aide helping the student. And most of these accommodations would be helpful to any student, except that we don’t have the resources to give them to everyone. And so parents, who naturally want to give their children all of the opportunities and benefits they can, want their children to receive diagnoses (especially relatively socially-acceptable ones like ASD or ADHD) so they can benefit from these accommodations. And in true economic fashion, this demand leads to a supply. What’s the solution? I don’t know. It’s obviously not just to cut off these accommodations, because there are students who genuinely need them. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2025, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923/20 "2025-01-14T00:17:23Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I’m seriously tired of trying to keep up with terms people use to describe their afflictions, quirks and the fact they need an excuse not to be successful or happy in this life. > > We all have issues and needs. But propriety suggests you _suck it up, buttercup_ and deal the best you can. Here’s a bad bad bad example for you: ASD level 1 in accordance with DSM-5 determined through a formal evaluation and diagnostic process. Sorry to bug bug bug bad bad Beck [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-slovening-of-medical-terminology/1012923.md?page=2)