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Ableist language

Look, as I said before, you are entitled to do whatever you want. You still have to suffer the consequences of those actions.

If you are reporting posts that you are legitimately offended by (as opposed to simply trolling the report button), I highly doubt that you would get warnings for it.
 
Phantom, what? Most of the mods here, not to mention Butterfree, have been arguing against enforced vocabulary checks. We tend to be good at calling someone out if they're suddenly using the r-word, but mostly we pick our battles. Sometimes if someone personally has a problem, they go and talk to them directly, and ask them to consider not doing it future (e.g. I know some leave VMs for people who use binarist language, rather than either reporting or infracting, because it's more a matter of not being unpleasant rather than breaking rules).

Considering there are people who report very regularly about very small things, clearly we don't really care if someone does that.
 
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Look, as I said before, you are entitled to do whatever you want. You still have to suffer the consequences of those actions.

If you are reporting posts that you are legitimately offended by (as opposed to simply trolling the report button), I highly doubt that you would get warnings for it.

Obvious trolling is obvious.

But if someone actually has a claim... say hold on... just remembered that.

No I'm not saying this is how I specifically got this, but there are those who do infract for it.

EDIT: Holy Ninja Batman. Was I yelling at mods? I was saying that it was enforced somehow, the report function. Obviously.

But thank you, for sharing that bit of what is private information with the world. Quite nice of you to do that, especially since it might have negative effects on me. Thank you oh so much. I wasn't calling out anyone, or anything. Can someone take that down please and can the mods please check themselves before posting private information like that publicly? Seriously, that's a bit out of line.

Not only that. It's plain and outright rude, especially unprovoked. Things like this is not what I have come to expect from a place like this.
 
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We're at an impasse, because I do in fact believe that people are intentionally making my life harder by refusing to make adjustments. Oh and the reason I really don't like this is because people here seem to act under the impression that they are more open that the general population (correct me if I'm wrong), while they're not really accepting of my stance.

oh my god yiran shut up about that goddamn mafia game already the world does not revolve around you just accept the fact that you had ample time to post and just because you didn't get to post ~right before the end of the day phase~ is NOT FUCKING DISCRIMINATORY because there's no way around it. seriously this is just petty and ridiculous and makes you look like a bit of an ass.
 
oh my god yiran shut up about that goddamn mafia game already the world does not revolve around you just accept the fact that you had ample time to post and just because you didn't get to post ~right before the end of the day phase~ is NOT FUCKING DISCRIMINATORY because there's no way around it. seriously this is just petty and ridiculous and makes you look like a bit of an ass.

I didn't have ample time to post after major things happened (or I might have, it's been a while so I've forgot a lot of stuff). That was the point. (Oh and if bad things happen to me because of my time zone, well, I don't like that. :( )

Well, I admit to being a petty person (if I've ever lent you money you would know), but I don't think I am an ass from my behaviour, because I still feel justified. Feel free to think so if you want to.
 
Just wondering... if people here are concerned with avoiding ableist slurs, why do we still have a forum called "Insanity"?

Wouldn't that be potentially offensive?
 
I didn't have ample time to post after major things happened (or I might have, it's been a while so I've forgot a lot of stuff). That was the point. (Oh and if bad things happen to me because of my time zone, well, I don't like that. :( )

i looked back over your complaints and it was basically "oh i wanted to say something at the very end of the day phase but that was three am so :(" and the point is that just because you wanted to make a statement at the end of the day phase does not make the rules any more discriminatory and unfair. time-zone-ism is not a thing because all deadlines on international forums are going to inconvenience someone, somehow. and it's not like you didn't have ample opportunity to post, but oh, apparently the world revolves around you and you should be given the opportunity to post right before the end of the day phase because logik.

your arguments don't apply to ableism, they're just you finding an excuse to whine about discrimination that isn't actually discrimination.

Just wondering... if people here are concerned with avoiding ableist slurs, why do we still have a forum called "Insanity"?

Wouldn't that be potentially offensive?

Butterfree and some other mods aren't wanting to enforce vocabulary policing, and if Butterfree's comments here are any indication she doesn't necessarily see the problem when the words aren't being used in an offensive manner.
 
Actually, discussion always dies down after a while, when there's a majority and stuff, so that everyone has a chance to speak after the voting process and whatnot. And plus, it's mafia, what people say may easily turn tides of games.

It's true that it's a tiny thing compared to installing ramps for schools, but I still think that there is a solution and it didn't happen because people couldn't be bothered.

But really, if you think that's a bad example, then fine, because that just came off as a sub-argument. Back to my main point:

Intelligence isn't ableist. If you think it is ableist then you think everyone who thinks the concept of intelligence is real ableist. And then your range of "people you consider ableist" would be too large for anyone you consider ableist to care, anyway.
 
i'm done arguing the mafia point because you're never going to understand how fucking egotistical your statements are

but this:

Intelligence isn't ableist.

care to explain why you think so?
 
I've seen people argue that they think "dumb" and "lame" are different because the former has pretty entirely fallen out of use except for the new definition and you now can say "mute", while "lame" is still the only way you can talk about someone with a bad leg! Weirdly there are apparently a bunch of people who were completely unaware that "lame" had anything to do with legs ever, but I definitely remember seeing it quite a bit as a kid! I'm pretty sure it was in a bunch of realistic fiction horse books, for instance (like I think there's a scene in The Black Stallion or Black Beauty or something where the titular horse is in danger of having a permanently lame leg). I remember it being used in the bible, too, and I knew what it meant the first time it came up in church even though I was pretty little. That is, I get that some people didn't know! But others do and then there'd be the possibility that they're affected by negative uses!

But, even if it's just an old definition, that doesn't mean it can never affect anyone. Like, at least a few old books I read as a kid referred to mute people as "dumb". I knew that it also meant mute, but I still thought the author was trying to tell me that people who couldn't speak were inherently not as smart as other people! (Otherwise, I didn't get why they'd use a double-meaning word instead of picking something else.) If "lame" as "uncool" had been so much of a thing around me, I could've taken the same kind of message away from stories using that word! I really don't think it's unrealistic that that could happen to other people! Even if you've never heard of the other definition, it seems like there's usually plenty of context to go around with it. Like in the horse books the horse's leg got hurt and the horse couldn't enter races or whatever, and then in context the horse's owner was concerned about the leg being lame, and talked about it healing from being lame so the horse could race again.

(hide tag just in case someone doesn't want to suddenly run into examples even in a context of "this thing people do is bad"!)

I don't think "crazy" is really dead in its definition as mental illness, anyway! When someone says a person is "crazy", they're still inherently saying "something is wrong in this person's head and this is the only reason that they're [doing something bad/disagreeing with me/hurting me]" or more clearly "they could only be doing this if they have a mental illness." I've even seen "mental illness" and "crazy" used in that kind of context interchangeably more than once; people say stuff like "uh, I think e's mentally ill." talking about people like politicians that they strongly disagree with. That's not okay! There's nothing okay about saying something that really clearly carries the meaning "people with mental illnesses are bad gross people who no one would want to be around".

That definition is still alive and hurting people all the time! People learn that it's okay to think if someone is doing something that they don't understand, the someone is just "crazy"; this translates really easily to being mean to people with mental disorders! Those people hear all the time that others think they're "crazy" and bad and dangerous and abnormal, and people without mental disorders get the understanding that that is the case. If they're around someone experiencing depression (for instance) and the depressed person does something that doesn't make immediate sense to the other person, they're dismissed as being "crazy". Dismissing people who are experiencing depression like that is really bad! If it's expressed at the depressed person, they can absorb that kind of reasoning, too, and feel worse at themselves and feel like they're "going crazy" because that's what they're told is happening and they get less likely to seek treatment! People around them think they're "going crazy" too and get less likely to help them seek treatment! Places where people can get treatment are a joke, somewhere for "crazy" people to go. Only "crazy" people need to see a therapist. Only "crazy" people need medicine. That's not okay! But people really think those things! This sort of use of the word "crazy" encourages that kind of thought!
I don't know about calling non-people things (or non-personified things) "crazy" being quite the same level of harmfulness, but I don't think "but people don't associated it with mental disorders at all" is necessarily quite right (even if it maybe appears true at first!). People call a day "crazy" in the same breath that they call a person "crazy"; it's not totally outlandish to guess that they might build a bridge between the two, even if sub-consciously!

I wish I knew way more about it, but it really doesn't seem right to consider it wholly unproblematic!

I'm also really curious about thoughts on uses of "crazy" as an actually-positive thing, like as a way of saying "wow, this is incredible and amazing and cool"! I was watching a video series about the universe and the narrator kept going on about how "crazy" the universe is in the sense that it's really amazing! Is using it as a good thing suddenly okay, or is it still bad because that kind of definition can really only come from having it mean things like "ridiculous" or "outlandish", first? Does it still give people the wrong idea and still remind them of the negative use?

I think it's all in the context of how these words are used, as Butterfree explained very well. Obviously, not all of them have immediately negative connotations. Some do, and some may be used to be negative, but unless it's obviously directed to meant to be taken as an insult of some sort it doesn't deserved to be banned. That's a bit over dramatic.

Words like "insane" or "crazy" mean very different things now they they did say, fifty years ago. The language evolves, and we should evolve with it rather than the alternative. Remember when "gay" meant that something or someone was happy?

I think it's not a good idea and is just looking to start arguments.

I don't agree either that something unintentially mean is what you should ban over! But! That's not what's happening. Messaging someone and telling them "hey, this is making the forum less safe! I know you didn't mean it but please refrain from this in the future, thank you!" isn't banning them.

Language evolving is important to take note of, sure! A word trying to evolve isn't always good, though. People take words that others needed and turn them into bad mean things! If a word is evolving to get worse and meaner, then why shouldn't people try hard to stop it from happening?

It isn't looking to start an argument! Someone realized words keep getting used on this forum that might be bad, and now people are trying to figure out through talking how bad those words are! If it's figured out that they are really bad and harmful, then why isn't it okay to try and keep them away? Figuring that out is important! If it's figured out that it actually is an okay thing to say, instead, then at worst people had an interesting conversation and became newly sure of a thing and learned a lot! That's not bad.

I'm sensing mountains being made out of mole hills.

If someone is offended by something someone says, ok then they ahve a right to notify staff. Otherwise, removing all language that in the history of the world has potential to be insulting is being overdramatic.

If I started reporting every post I see that said something was crazy or stupid, I'd get a warning for using the report function incorrectly. Would I not?

Even if no one personally is hurt by a word used on a forum, it's still not good! There are lots of places made up by people who are happy to have tons of hatred spilling around in the place. That doesn't make it good that they're reinforcing that kind of behaviour with each other, and it doesn't just stay in their place. People get reinforced that harmful hateful things are okay and then go on to be like that everywhere else, too!

Even if no one here is upset at "crazy" (and it's totally possible that there are and they just stay quiet), if some other people outside of the forums are really harmed by it, then surely it's a positive force if people learn that here? It's better for someone to go "oh, gosh, I didn't know it was bad I'll stop" and then not hurt anyone then for them to never know and go out in the world hurting lots of people suddenly.

Why would you get a warning? If something's bothering you on a post and you can't deal with it on your own, how is that a bad kind of report? In that case you're reporting something you genuinely feel is a problem! You're trying your hardest to use the report feature as you understood that it should be used.

Not really!

If I have a supposed legit claim to report someone because they said that their 'VHS player was stupid' and that as a intellectually disabled individual I felt offended, or if they said that they say 'homework is dumb' and I am actually incapable of speaking, what would their response be? What if I were to report every time someone used a word that could be potentially offensive?

There are mods here that give infractions/warnings for misuse of the report button.

I saw a post that was calling someone a 'cunt' outright (and not even in the CC). Shouldn't that be removed? Surely there are some here who feel insulted by it? That find the use of the word demeaning?

Do you see how it doesn't work?

If you're disabled and language like "dumb" or "stupid" is hurting you, then, yeah, that's a problem! What are you saying? That ideally you should just be quiet and deal with being really hurt? No one should just have to sit and be hurt about something!

Isn't that a pretty bad word to use with lots of misogynistic connotations! How does it not work to try getting rid of something really bad?

Intelligence isn't ableist. If you think it is ableist then you think everyone who thinks the concept of intelligence is real ableist. And then your range of "people you consider ableist" would be too large for anyone you consider ableist to care, anyway.

Why do you as a presumably totally able-bodied person get to decide what's ableist and what's not? You're not the one who has to deal with the pain of ableism! If something ableist happens that would seriously hurt someone else, you wouldn't even have to notice.

Why shouldn't "people who are ableist" be a big category? People are are transphobic or binarist is a huge category! People who are sexist is a huge category! What's magic about ableism so that if you think ableist people are ableist, then your category is too big? Are you going to edit the definition of ableism whenever it gets bigger than a handful of people? Is the definition you know somehow inherently "only a handful of people do this" so that you think there can't be a big group?

People are taught that intelligence is a real thing that's a good way to measure people! They don't know about it being ableism, but that doesn't make it not. Unintentional ableism is still ableism! If I've never had to use a ramp in my life and so I forget to include one on a building I'm making, then yeah, I obviously didn't on purpose go "hah so there people who can't use stairs you can't get in take that!!!", but that doesn't mean the no ramp isn't a problem! And then that's surely pretty problematic that I'm an architect who doesn't consider disabled people important enough to remember ramps.

So no, the concept of intelligence isn't ableist. The concept of intelligence is to measure how well a person would potentially do something, not to provoke unjust treatment of people of lesser intelligence.

I'm pretty new to the idea of the concept of intelligence being ableist, but lots of things are problems! It's a problem that if someone doesn't instantly understand something that's being explained a bad way for them, that they're considered less "intelligent". Forget about a dictionary definition of ableism for a minute and think about it! Do you think it's a positive force that people not getting not-gettable-to-them stuff means they're considered worse people? Is it okay that others think they're worse people?

Also why is "discrimination in favor of able-bodied people." even an argument in the first place? What if intelligence is discrimination in favour of able-bodied people?

No, it is not the wrong turn, because everyone here seems to treat everything as discrimination when it should be only applied when it is unjust.

What is "unjust"? If someone's getting hurt due to a word, isn't that pretty unjust and unfair? It's not "just" or fair that someone goes onto a forum trying to talk about Pokemon or kitties and suddenly gets badly hurt.

So I don't really care if you think of me at ableist because you are also thinking of a lot of other people as ableist.

What are you even trying to get across? If I think only one person is ableist and it's you, is it suddenly truer then if I think a hundred people are ableist and just one of them is you? Maybe it's just the case that a hundred people are really ableist!

People are overly sensitive here. I am not saying this because I am insensitive, but most people in our school wouldn't make a fuss about things like mixing up "gender" and "sex" because that seems also like pulling out dictionary definitions to me.

Most people in your school wouldn't care about mixing up gender and sex because most people in your school are transphobic and binarist and cissexist. "Most people" doing something isn't a good reason to do it! If "most people" in your school threw rocks at you, would it turn into a good and positive thing to do? ?_? When "most people" were segregated by race, was being segregated by race fine...?

It isn't about dictionary definitions! Mixing up gender and sex hurts real people lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots! Who cares what a dictionary says? A disagreement on whether frito pie is a pie or not is just a definition argument. This is something that's real and affects real people! If considering gender and sex the same thing is actively hurting people, it's not okay to consider them the same thing! Why should a white cis able-bodied guy writing a dictionary entry get to decide that hurting me by mixing up sex and gender is okay? Why do you agree with that person that it's okay just because they got a job writing for a dictionary?? If I get a job writing for a dictionary, will I be the authority on words, and then will you instantly change your mind??? If the dictionaries all band together to define ableism as "ableism is when you use the word 'crazy' ever even in a non-harmful way." then would you argue that "crazy" is a bad word to say? Are you only allowed to think things that are verbatim from a dictionary? Why does a dictionary not putting "crazy" in the definition of ableism mean it can't be ableist??

The point isn't whether the word "crazy" fits every single arbitrary definition of ableism you can look up in the whole world. Pulling out a dictionary in a debate is bad because it kills the actual argument, which is "is this a thing that is hurting people?" Even if your dictionary says some arbitrary thing, it's still the case that this stuff is either hurting people or not hurting people. The only reason to have a word "ableism" at all, like the only reason to have any word at all, is so we can communicate! If communication is breaking down because your dictionary says something else, then that's just a totally useless conversation. If you'd rather argue about the nuances of dictionaries, then you don't really need to be in an argument that's totally unrelated to the nuances of dictionaries! It's just de-railing.

If you're struggling to have this conversation because of a definition, why do you even care about the word? Why not go "okay, so are you saying that using 'crazy' is doing this and that? Because that's the definition about ableism I know." Then someone can either say yes or no, and then you won't be struggling anymore! That's like a thousand times less complicated and de-rail-y than splitting hairs over what some aribtrary dictionary says.


Unjust treatment is discrimination, not what happens in the norm. Here's another example: stairs are far more helpful for able-bodied people than the physically disabled but they are not "ableist".

... But, discrimination does happen "in the norm". It's regular for people to be discriminated against every day! Your dictionary doesn't get to decide that that's not discrimination just because it's happening too much. If a dictionary said "diamonds: a carbony gemstone. Incredibly rare." and then suddenly someone found a whole bunch of diamonds - like, so many diamonds that diamonds became ultra-common - then would the diamonds... quit being diamonds...??? The dictionary says these are rare! But now they're not rare. So instead of diamonds they're now this mysterious object that no one knows how to talk about, surely?

(don't say "but it doesn't say that!"; I'm not asking because it actually says that but because I want to know if you think a dictionary can turn diamonds into not-diamonds.)

No one is saying stairs are ableist. But, if I found a dictionary that defines ableism as "stairs existing", scanned it, and posted it to the forum, would you suddenly agree that stairs are hurting people by existing?

Actually, discussion always dies down after a while, when there's a majority and stuff, so that everyone has a chance to speak after the voting process and whatnot. And plus, it's mafia, what people say may easily turn tides of games.

But you could "turn the tide" of mafia even a month later. That doesn't mean not keeping it open for a month becomes discrimination. It's a game! Part of the point is that you're supposed to think of the things to say at the pace of the game. Someone not getting to post because it went too fast is just inevitable! The only feasible solution is to keep the day phase open forever so that no one ever thinks of something to say when it's too late. And then you don't get to play mafia anymore.

If someone is going camping for a week, is having day phases at all during that time discrimination against campers?? If they knew they were going camping, they could've not joined a mafia game! If they didn't know, then that's too bad that they'll miss stuff, but everyone can't just pause the game and wait forever. They still want to play! There will be more mafia games for the camper some other time!

I'm really confused about why it's even relevant! Throwing harmful words around has basically zero similarities to choosing to play games and then not having time for the games!
 
tbh i'd love if we stopped using 'crazy' and 'insane' because every time i see those words used in pretty much any context i remember suddenly that people like me and many of my friends are treated as inferior because of issues entirely out of our control : ) and by 'treated as inferior' i mean that as people have done that literally and as the world is oriented towards people who are neurotypical despite the fact that such an overwhelming number of people are not

Just wondering... if people here are concerned with avoiding ableist slurs, why do we still have a forum called "Insanity"?

Wouldn't that be potentially offensive?

THIS
is actually a good point
 
tbh i'd love if we stopped using 'crazy' and 'insane' because every time i see those words used in pretty much any context i remember suddenly that people like me and many of my friends are treated as inferior because of issues entirely out of our control : ) and by 'treated as inferior' i mean that as people have done that literally and as the world is oriented towards people who are neurotypical despite the fact that such an overwhelming number of people are not



THIS
is actually a good point
yyyyeah
 
just wanna say, this has to be the single most socially conscious community I've seen anywhere in my entire life

I'm proud of you guys :D making the world a better place one step at a time!! I feel like some of you are gonna go on to be lawyers or politicians or extremely vocal protestors and Be Awesome by doing so.
 
tbh i'd love if we stopped using 'crazy' and 'insane' because every time i see those words used in pretty much any context i remember suddenly that people like me and many of my friends are treated as inferior because of issues entirely out of our control : ) and by 'treated as inferior' i mean that as people have done that literally and as the world is oriented towards people who are neurotypical despite the fact that such an overwhelming number of people are not

Okay! That's all I really wanted. If it does in fact trigger people even in innocuous contexts, that's not okay.

The Insanity forum has been named that since it started in 2003, at which time I would have read the word "ableism" as "a-BLEH-ism" and associated it with the exclamation "bleh". By all means let's change the name to something better.

(On the subject of intelligence: when used as a measure of people as a whole and as a basis to discriminate between people, yeah, it's hard to argue it isn't. On the other hand, I don't think completely excising the idea that some people tend to be better at certain things than others is at all realistic or useful, and some of the things that people can be good/not as good at are various mental tasks. That just needs to be recognized as not being the extent of a person's capabilities or The One Important Measure of Worth or whatever.)
 
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I once saw a black man complain about the use of the word denigrate because its origins are literally "to make black" and he was complaining that it was racist.

Now he is right - denigrate means to make something black and by association, to make it worse. But it had no association with black people (although it MAY have something to do with skin color, although only as a side effect?). Nobody, nobody hears denigrate and thinks "oh yeah man, making things worse by associating them with black things/people" much like very few people nowadays hear decimate and think "a population has been lowered by one tenth" (except maybe opal or educated people).

My question is, how far should we go to avoid people's feelings being hurt? What if there is no option and whatever you do hurts people? Like in the autistic community, there's the argument between "person with autism" and "autistic person." There is no 3rd option. You are marginalizing a group no matter which one you use. Do you just say "fuck you" to the group that's smaller? To what lengths should one go to make sure nobody is hurt or bothered?

Basically, I'm kind of concerned that we're sort of worrying about issues that... in the end, won't really affect how people are treated. Saying "these nachos are insane" won't hurt anybody; saying "you're crazy because you're depressed (and therefore your opinions don't matter)" will. Language is very complicated and saying "okay this word has problematic origins; let's eliminate it regardless of its actual use nowadays" is ignoring that this is a nuanced situation.

As for insanity the forum, here's a good point. "Absurd" literally means "from a deaf/mute person." That didn't stop anybody here from suggesting it. It doesn't affect a deaf acquaintance of mine who's described things as absurd multiple things. So should we not use this word, absurd, because its origins may be problematic, even though I'm fairly certain it's not really ever been used as a slur or as a way to put down deaf/Deaf people?

(btw, I am mentally ill with anxiety and depression and am neurodivergent, so uh this isn't random able-minded person coming in and speaking about what concerns them. The issue of how mental health affects people is very serious and it's one of my points of contention irl)
 
I once saw a black man complain about the use of the word denigrate because its origins are literally "to make black" and he was complaining that it was racist.

Now he is right - denigrate means to make something black and by association, to make it worse. But it had no association with black people (although it MAY have something to do with skin color, although only as a side effect?). Nobody, nobody hears denigrate and thinks "oh yeah man, making things worse by associating them with black things/people" much like very few people nowadays hear decimate and think "a population has been lowered by one tenth" (except maybe opal or educated people).

My question is, how far should we go to avoid people's feelings being hurt? What if there is no option and whatever you do hurts people? Like in the autistic community, there's the argument between "person with autism" and "autistic person." There is no 3rd option. You are marginalizing a group no matter which one you use. Do you just say "fuck you" to the group that's smaller? To what lengths should one go to make sure nobody is hurt or bothered?

Basically, I'm kind of concerned that we're sort of worrying about issues that... in the end, won't really affect how people are treated. Saying "these nachos are insane" won't hurt anybody; saying "you're crazy because you're depressed (and therefore your opinions don't matter)" will. Language is very complicated and saying "okay this word has problematic origins; let's eliminate it regardless of its actual use nowadays" is ignoring that this is a nuanced situation.

As for insanity the forum, here's a good point. "Absurd" literally means "from a deaf/mute person." That didn't stop anybody here from suggesting it. It doesn't affect a deaf acquaintance of mine who's described things as absurd multiple things. So should we not use this word, absurd, because its origins may be problematic, even though I'm fairly certain it's not really ever been used as a slur or as a way to put down deaf/Deaf people?

(btw, I am mentally ill with anxiety and depression and am neurodivergent, so uh this isn't random able-minded person coming in and speaking about what concerns them. The issue of how mental health affects people is very serious and it's one of my points of contention irl)

I am not sure in how far the last paragraph applies to myself, but other than that I agree 100% with this post.
 
I guess the question is "how recently was the word in question used to describe a certain group of people". TCoD frowns upon the use of 'gay' and 'retarded' as insults because the insulting, marginalizing nature of those words is very much still present. However only some TCoDians are arguing that words such as 'crazy' and 'insane' should be outlawed because the association between those words and mentally ill people, while present, is not as implied in some contexts nearly as much as the association between 'gay' and 'retarded' and their more technical meanings (homosexuality and impaired intelligence) is. Going back even further, the word 'sinister' has its origins in the Latin word for the left hand, sinestra. The word evolved from meaning "left-handed" to meaning "evil", as if to suggest that left-handed people are evil, as some thought was the case centuries ago. However I have not heard any TCoDer arguing that the word sinister should be included in the list of words to ban. The word's colloquial definition, evil, has all but eclipsed its original association with left-handedness and certainly I don't think anyone thinks of an association that left-handed people are evil when using the word sinister.

So I guess the real question, for people who are concerned about the use of ableist slurs, is - do you want all words that have negative connotations and have their origin in describing a certain sect of the population to be banned from use, or do you merely want to ban the ones that are still trigger-worthy? Does it have to do with whether the word is still used to refer to said sect of the population?

Basically, how do you determine which words are ableist slurs and which ones aren't? I mean, even Datura's list describing replacement words for ableist slurs included "absurd", which ... explained has its origins in - whoops - ableism. Where do you draw the line?
 
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