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The word "retarded" has fallen out of use as sensitivity to the disabled has grown. Now, a similar dynamic is beginning to play out around the word "crazy" and those with mental...
Jul 8, 2019 · The word "retarded" has fallen out of use as sensitivity to the disabled has grown. Now, a similar dynamic is beginning to play out around the word "crazy" and those with mental illness.
- Neda Ulaby
Mar 7, 2012 · President Obama passed Rosa’s Law in 2010, which eliminates the use of the words “retarded” and “retardation” in federal health, education and labor laws. The bill changed the terms “mental...
- “Spaz” If you’ve ever called someone a “spaz,” you may have meant it all in good fun, but it’s anything but fun for many people with disabilities. The word “spaz” is slang for “spastic,” which is a medical term that was originally used to describe people with cerebral palsy.
- “Crazy” You’ve probably used the word “crazy” more times than you can count, but you may not know it’s harmful to people with mental illness. Since the Middle Ages, “crazy” has derogatorily referred to people who have a disease or sickness.
- “Lame” If your first inclination is to call a boring night out or a letdown of a party “lame,” please think again. Although “lame” was originally a term to describe people who struggle to move, by the 1600s, it was used to describe old, irrelevant news.
- “Retard” You’ve likely seen the “r-word” all over the internet — and you may also have spotted plenty of campaigns against it. “Retard” is one of the most recognizable disability slurs, but even a spate of awareness campaigns about how the “r-word” hurts people with intellectual disabilities hasn’t taken it out of people’s vocabularies.
- “Crazy” Might Be A Sexist Term.
- “Crazy” Is A Catchall Word That Doesn’T Mean Just One thing.
- Lesson Learned: Use The Words You mean, and Use Person-First Language.
Since it premiered in 2015, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” has played with the use of the word “crazy” in its theme songs, which vary each year. The first season’s theme introduces the show’s premise: Rebecca Bunch, a high-powered attorney in New York, gives up her life and starts over in California in an irrationally obsessive bid to reunite with her first...
Another problem with the word “crazy”? It doesn’t mean just one specific thing. The third-season theme song for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” personifies that concept to the point of near-parody, as Rebecca portrays four different characters that are all different versions of the concept of “crazy.” (During this season, Rebecca is coming to terms with havi...
There are three keys to using language about mental illness, Curtis notes: Use the correct words to describe something (the name of a diagnostic category if it’s a mental illness, or a descriptive general word like “outlandish” otherwise, not just “crazy” for everything); acknowledge when stereotypes exist—and debunk them; and use language that ack...
Sep 8, 2009 · The word is no longer used in medical and social service circles, and activists are campaigning against television shows and movies that use the so-called r-word offensively. Accessibility links...
Jul 18, 2018 · 'Mentally retarded' was commonly used decades ago to accurately describe people with slower-than-normal intellectual development — but then people started to use it as an insult.
