1. Disabled
I don’t hate the word disability, but I despise the word disabled – especially when I see it in a headline like this one, or worse, this one. “The disabled” is a lazy way of grouping people with a loose – very loose! – commonality. Sometimes it’s to elicit a sympathetic response, but that doesn’t make it okay.
2. Inspiring
Yes, I’m a bit of hypocrite with this one, because I do kinda love it when strangers come up to me and tell me that my softball-playing daughter with cerebral palsy is inspiring. But I’m good with it in that context because I know that people love rooting for the underdog because underdogs make us all want to work a little harder and do a little more.
But when I see the word inspiring in a headline? Gag.
3. Down (as in “Down syndrome”)
Down syndrome was named for John Langdon Down, the man who first discovered it. Down asserted that it was a genetic regression (yes, that’s as bad as it sounds) unique to people of Mongolian descent (yep, he threw in a racist element, too), which is why for nearly a century people with Trisomy 21 were referred to as “mongoloids.”
I would prefer to never ever ever use the phrase “Down syndrome” on this blog, but because “trisomy 21” is much less familiar in our societal vernacular, I keep it in. I don’t want an expectant mom with a new diagnosis (or one of her friends or family members) to miss out on a helpful message because I don’t like to commemorate Mr. Down’s “accomplishment” here.
Note: the man who discovered its cause – Trisomy 21 – was NOT Down. That man’s name was Jerome LeJeune and he’s much more worthy of accolades, in my view.
4. Special
Special has become a euphemism for weird – and that’s being … generous. UrbanDictionary.com is a bit more targeted in their definitions, and they aren’t kind. Unfortunately, “special” is part of the vernacular of my world, so I’ll keep holding my nose and using it, in the header of this blog, in my ebook, and as a hashtag on Twitter.
5. The R-Word
No, not that one, Slate magazine. This one that is not only offensive, but devalues people with intellectual disabilities. It’s also hackneyed, unoriginal and evidence of laziness by the user (Tip: the first person to complain about censorship in the combox gets deleted!)
BIG dittos on your post! #3 gave me something to think about. I know a lot of people still call it “Down’s Syndrome” and that annoys me. I’ve got other issues in our household. My 17yo daughter has moderate cerebral palsy due to CMV (cytomegalovirus). Although one in 150 babies are born with this virus in their system, only 1 in 5 of those are born affected by it. There is so little education out there about CMV, despite it’s prevalence, that it’s often frustrating. How do I explain CMV when it’s so unknown and yet so common??
The Down/Down’s thing doesn’t bother me – in some English speaking countries “Down’s” is actually the correct pronunciation.
I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about CMV, but I have at least heard of it – I think from all of those “baby books” when I was pregnant. I’m surprised that it’s not very well known.
I HATE the words ‘spaz’ and ‘retard’
Agreed!
Being a teen w/ a mild sensuoneral hearing loss(in fact I just found out it was sensuoneral which I have no clue how to spell) I hate when people jokingly say oh you need a hearing aid. I have a feeling in the future when I tell people my hearing loss is sensuoneral people will say oh you must have listening to music to high(b/c it’s the kind of loss people get from cranking up their ipods) I always thought my hearing loss was conductive but my recent hearing test shows otherwise. Finally I hate when people call me deaf(which I am not), assume I know sign language(which I barely do), assume the accomadations I need w/o asking(hello 4th grade lunch monitor who had me sit on the little stage w/ 1 friend so it would be quieter ) and of course when the word retard is used.
I hate the assumptions, too – throughout Sarah Kate’s life people have assumed she needed more help and/or more accommodations than she really does. Drive us both nuts!
I think what I like most about this post is that you recognize that you still use some of the words in an effort to reach out to people who might not know otherwise:
“I don’t want an expectant mom with a new diagnosis (or one of her friends or family members) to miss out on a helpful message because I don’t like to commemorate Mr. Down’s “accomplishment” here.”
It’s good to reach people where they are, and I think you do an awesome job of that!
I suspect it would be a lonely road to be a purist. 🙂
Thank you!
Fetus. I hate that word. It is a baby.
Another GREAT one. You’re absolutely right.
Please read “John Langdon Down: The Man and the Message” http://www.down-syndrome.org/perspectives/94/ and you will appreciate that Dr Down’s accomplishments helped improve the lives of people with intellectual disabilities because he had higher expectations of what they could do compared to his contemporaries. I think it sad that his accomplishments are not widely known.
Words that jar now, like “idiots” and “imbeciles” were the common terms of the day. Now we tend to refer to people as idiots without giving a thought to how it became a derogatory term. Retardation, which means “delayed” was once a respectable term that no doubt was considered an improvement on earlier terms. I guess some time in the future there will be a movement to ban the “S word”. I wonder though if we are not colluding with the negative perceptions of our children with disabilities when we too hate the terms. I personally don’t mind that my children have “Down syndrome” rather than “Trisomy 21” (which is also correctly called Down’s syndrome – just depends on the country you’re in). I appreciate a lot of people think of “down” as being the opposite of up, but it actually has two other meanings and one refers to the soft downy feathers of young birds that are used in some quilts and duvets. As I grew up with a cuddly down filled quilt. My daughters are also great to hug and be hugged by. I have a positive view of the word “Down” because I have a positive view of people with Down syndrome and feel particularly blessed to know many people with that label. I guess if we had a “Le Jeune” syndrome (and I agree it would be a worthy choice” no doubt someone would have objected that “Jeune” (meaning young) is inappropriate because it infantilises adults and “Le” refers to the masculine so doubt it would be deemed inappropriate for females. I actually find “Trisomy 21” focuses too much on just one scientific aspect of people with Down syndrome. While I accept it is scientifically correct, it’s also rather clinical.
Regardless of the labels we use we are all God’s children and members of the same human family
I have read the “The Man and the Message” (before I published this post) and I wasn’t shocked by those terms because they were the medical vernacular of that day. I don’t think that Mr. Down was necessarily a bad man – he’s a very complex figure, to be sure – and his opinions were reflective of his time (incidentally, Harvard doctors were asserting around that same time that women’s uteruses would fall out and they go crazy if they went to college…”conventional wisdom” of the day).
I’m not even claiming my hate for the word is rational. 🙂
I HATE the word autistic because it is used to describe the person. My son has autism. Most of the time the only way a stranger would know that he has autism is because he is wiggly (sensory issues) and non-verbal.
Interesting, Janet – I’ve seen a number of people in the autism community use autistic as a noun (and defend that usage) which seems very odd to me. Not to mention at odds with most of the rest of the disability community’s desire for People First language.
Did you know that many autistic people hate the term “person with autism” because it makes it sound like autism is something to be separated from their identity? Many autistics are proud of who and what they are and don’t see autism as a disorder but rather a different way of thinking and functioning. I find “Person with autism” extremely insulting. Keep in mind that if you are not part of a community, it’s not really fair to decide what they should be called. That would be like white people deciding African Americans prefer to be called colored.
I will assume since you replied to me that your question was directed to me, but since the answer (“yes”) was clear in my comment I’m not certain why you felt you needed to ask.
Your analogy about “white people” is an imperfect one, because there is a negative connotation with that word that is tied to many decades of history. Once upon a time, no one thought using “mongoloid” to describe people with Down syndrome was a big deal, and it was accurate as far as science knew in those days. Today we know better.
I would suggest that the decision to like or dislike the word “autistic” is a personal preference. The same arguments you made in favor of it could be made for calling people with T21 “Downies” but most in the community would object and find it offensive. The desire to be seen as unique is not in itself a bad thing, but many in the disability community have been seen as “unique” for many years – and paid the price of abuse because they were different.
Normal What is ‘normal’, anyway? We hate the R word, too! Great post.
Normal. I just can’t stomach that word. Not sure if I really prefer neurotypical either….But I definitely do not like when people say, “oh your son will be going to school with normal kids?” So what does that make my son??
Amen to the “normal” – there’s no such thing!
It’s interesting about the R-word, I’ve known for as long as I can remember that it is unacceptable to use that word as an insult, and I always cringe inwardly when I hear it used in media… I assumed everyone knew better than to use the word, but lately it seems I’m hearing it all the time. The last three movies or TV series I’ve watched have used the R-word quite casually. It seems to be getting more prevalent rather than less.
Phrases that I hate are “gave up for adoption,” “real mother (father),” and “natural mother (father).
Mr. Andi and I watched National Lampoon’s Vacation a few months ago (the original that came out in 1983 – 30 years ago!) and in one scene the daughter, Audrey, calls her brother an R-word. I was surprised that it had been around that long as an insult, because I’m about the same age as “Audrey” (I was 13 in 1983). It does seem much more prevalent now – especially if you spend much time on Twitter. 🙁