(Don't) Putting Spaz

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Mong = Mongol = someone with Downs Syndrome

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link

"Psycho" in the US obviously has connections to the clinical "psychotic," but it's generally used as a descriptive adjective, and almostly solely in cases where you're clearly not talking clinically: either it's random description ("I got home late and my mom when totally psycho about it") or it's like horror-movie cartoonish (like the term "psycho killer," which gets used to describe actual mentally-ill killers, but in this broad layperson way that's obviously not diagnostic). If a person honestly thinks another person is psychotic, "psycho" is not a term that would be used in serious discussion of that fact.

That's not a defense of the term, or anything, just a description of how it gets used here.

(Ha, I used the word "cretinous" earlier today and stopped for a second to think about "cretinism" as a medical condition and what that meant as far as me using the word!) (I used it anyway.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link

gabb, "Mong" = "Mongoloid."

x-post of course

― phil d. (Phil D.), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link

HANDICAPABLE!

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link

If a person honestly thinks another person is psychotic, "psycho" is not a term that would be used in serious discussion of that fact.

Oh, not here either. The poll is a bit confusing, because it makes no distinction between patronisingly well-meant terms that are actually used of people with disabilities (like "brave") and ones that are playground insults (like "mong") and ones in between (like "cripple").

Pretty much everyone would know that calling someone with a mental illness a "psycho" was offensive.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I tend to believe there's no outright offensive word shorn of context (though I'm still honestly ashamed about my stupidity last night), but there's certainly a sliding scale somewhere between "nearly always offensive" and "hardly ever offensive" that language works within. And then there's the old "two nations divided by a common language" thing, as Mike Skinner recently reminded us.

xposts

pssst, it's from Todd Rundgren, yeah?

― Dogfight Giggle (noodle vague), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:47 (eighteen years ago) link

...and I can see how patronisingly well-meant gets very annoying, very quick.

― Dogfight Giggle (noodle vague), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link

The extent to which "retard" is used by Americans and Australians surprises me, but that could be because the term "mental retardation" is not *that* dead a terminology in Britain. Or maybe it's just that you're all bastards.

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Well I wonder, what's elementary education like in the UK as far as, umm, mentally challenged children? The US usage is basically childish, and it stems from a specific kind of school organization where there was a kind of separate sect of "the retarded kids."

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:58 (eighteen years ago) link

That's special education! Not "retarded kids"!

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 18:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Hmm... well there used to be special schools here for kids with learning disabilities, but over recent decades there's been a push to try and include them in regular schools, and in the same classroom as other kids, yes. But it's a controversial area and I'm not very informed about what the current situation is. Anyone else?

― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 19:02 (eighteen years ago) link

UK? Mad rush for "inclusion" which has led to a lot of cases of families having to fight for their child's right to go back into non-mainstream schools where they were happier and learning more. If I was cynical I might suggest that this zeal for inclusion has more to do with cutting spending on expensive specialist education than it has to do with the wellbeing of the children.

― Dogfight Giggle (noodle vague), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 19:12 (eighteen years ago) link

alba, you spaz, check your e-mailssss!

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 19:33 (eighteen years ago) link

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/searchresults.php?board=1&mode=threads&q=spaz&titlepart=&name=RJG&email=&username=&dateafter=&datebefore=&catid=all

― RJG (RJG), Wednesday, 12 April 2006 19:35 (eighteen years ago) link

What if Tiger had said 'menk'?

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:22 (eighteen years ago) link

So am I right in assuming the difference is that in the UK there's some actual history of referring to people with palsy as "spazz" or "spastic?" I might be ignorant on this one, but I don't know of any similar habit in the U.S. -- our use of "spazz" seems to connect strictly to "spastic" as, like, a general descriptive adjective. (I even feel like the article -- a spazz -- is a later modification, not descended from actually identifying anyone as a spastic.) I don't think you could use "spastic" to refer to a medical condition in the U.S. and expect to be understood.
We do all this stuff with "retard" instead.

this is pretty much what i was thinking. but tiger's display on the 3rd makes it pretty clear that he's aware of the british usage.

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:35 (eighteen years ago) link

It would have been quite cool if he'd said, "I putted like a total raspberry", in a Dick Van Dyke Cockney accent

― D.D. Disappointed Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:38 (eighteen years ago) link

'a spanner'

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:40 (eighteen years ago) link

a nus

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:42 (eighteen years ago) link

A remmer.

― Mike W (caek), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:44 (eighteen years ago) link

putted like a total fucktard

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 13 April 2006 11:56 (eighteen years ago) link

"Disabled" is most generally used because it has connotations that the individual's impairment is not their biggest problem, but that they're disabled by society's inability to cope with their impairment.

Really? That comes across as a politically expedient reading in extremis. I'd have guessed if you surveyed the average man in the street, they'd say people were disabled because their legs (or whatever) didn't work.

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 13 April 2006 12:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha ha, that's political correctness gone errrrrrrrrrrrr psychiactrically errrrrrrrr challenged

― D.D. Disappointed Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link

is it wrong to talk about spaz-rock then? but spaz-rock is a compliment...

― emsk ( emsk), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Spatzel-rock.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:19 (eighteen years ago) link

tard-rock?

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:20 (eighteen years ago) link

gay-rock

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 13 April 2006 13:24 (eighteen years ago) link

sham-rock

― D.D. Disappointed Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 13 April 2006 14:18 (eighteen years ago) link

six months pass...

(still ROFFLing at Tiger Woods)

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 2 November 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

oh noes I have the phrase BOOTAY TOTALLY SPAZ stuck in my head again

― ONIMO's losing the plot (GerryNemo), Thursday, 2 November 2006 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link

All is right with the world!

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 2 November 2006 15:50 (seventeen years ago) link

VAJAYJAY TOTALLY SPAZ

― rrrobyn, the situation (rrrobyn), Thursday, 2 November 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link

All those months of not ilxing, so THIS is what I was missing.

― polar bear flashback episode (nickalicious), Thursday, 2 November 2006 16:18 (seventeen years ago) link

VAJAYJAY TOTALLY SPAZ

i am incapacitated with laughter

― The Android Cat (Dan Perry), Thursday, 2 November 2006 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link

eight months pass...

Nintendo withdraws game that taunts 'spastics'

― Alba, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 09:46 (sixteen years ago) link

"Andrew Rickell, executive director of Scope, the disability charity, praised Nintendo for withdrawing the game"

That'll be Scope, formerly known as The National Spastics Society.

― onimo, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 09:53 (sixteen years ago) link

http://images.tradera.com/297/42225297_1.jpg

I bought mario party 8

― RJG, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:05 (sixteen years ago) link

"Nintendo has been forced to withdraw a computer game from sale in the UK because it contains the word 'spastic' in its script."

But we give knighthoods to writers who 'taunt' 1.5 Billion Muslims world wide? Amazing!

"Spastic' is an extremely offensive word."

So is 'Satanic Verses'

Mohammed, London, UK

― acrobat, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:12 (sixteen years ago) link

"Magikoopa Magic! Turn the train, spastic! Make this ticket tragic!"

― blueski, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:12 (sixteen years ago) link

RJG - can I come over tonight and play with your taunting game?

― Alba, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:29 (sixteen years ago) link

I have a headache

― RJG, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:33 (sixteen years ago) link

in real life I am not in town but will let you know

― RJG, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 10:34 (sixteen years ago) link

That's not the only game banned for use of "spastic" in the past couple of months!

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ubisoft.s-mind-quiz/another-offensive-game-gets-pulled-273614.php

I dunno, but where I'm from spaz/spastic are about as offensive as dumb or idiot. "Spaz" doesn't even mean "act disabled" here, it's more like "get really mad."

― Will M., Thursday, 19 July 2007 20:19 (sixteen years ago) link

I bought mario party 8 but am not getting it

― RJG, Thursday, 19 July 2007 20:32 (sixteen years ago) link

awesome I have a totally offensive game

― El Tomboto, Thursday, 19 July 2007 20:35 (sixteen years ago) link

wish I did : (

― RJG, Thursday, 19 July 2007 20:40 (sixteen years ago) link

I dunno, but where I'm from spaz/spastic are about as offensive as dumb or idiot. "Spaz" doesn't even mean "act disabled" here, it's more like "get really mad."

Yeah, it's like when I was a kid 'gay' used to mean lame, but then it meant homosexual and people got upset about me saying it.

― dowd, Thursday, 19 July 2007 21:11 (sixteen years ago) link

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