The Power of Words

I am an avid reader and a prolific writer of (fan)fiction, a professional translator and an enthusiastic editor. I am fluent in two languages, and working on learning three others. I guess you could say, then, that I like words, their meanings and their histories. I understand that a single word can have different meanings depending on its context, and that this meaning can change through time.

The words to speak of the disabled community are no exception to this rule. There were times where calling someone a cripple, a retard or a moron was completely acceptable. Today, not so much.

I have also seen, however, people pushing for the abolition of words such as idiot, deaf or dumb, calling them ableist slurs, and while I see where this classification comes from, I do not agree with it. The definitions of words evolve, as I said above, and, in my opinion, the ableist definitions are old and have been replaced by new meanings through common mainstream use, making those words, used in most contexts, quite innocuous.

Note: As I say, this article is only my personal opinion! Just because I think some words are harmless does not mean you need to think so too. In fact, knowing that these words bother some people, I try not to use them in public.

Idiot

someone who is stupid, foolish, etc. and whom you do not like or respect

I’ll bet when I mentioned “ableist slurs” in the introduction, the word “idiot” was not the first one that came to your mind! Don’t worry, before the start of my great adventures in disability (and on Twitter), I also had no idea that to some, words such as “idiot” or “stupid” were anything other than gentle insults that have become so commonplace they’re barely offensive anymore.

In the past, “idiocy” was one of the words commonly used to identify mental illness, hence the link today with ableism. However, I don’t believe that particular definition of the word is the first one that comes to mind when we use it. In fact, even the Antidote dictionary I’m using for these definitions doesn’t link this word to its previous sense of mental disability anymore; I had to go to the definition of “idiocy” itself, or to its French translation, to find the medical or psychological definitions qualified as slurs. I honestly believe this term has evolved past its ableist sense, with time and popular use.

However, if (like me) you want to try to eliminate this word from your public vocabulary, here are the Canadian synonyms Antidote gives me: goofball, schmuck, kook, dummy, pill, cluck, dumbbell, dip, doofus, meatball, screwball, ding-dong, nimrod, putz, dingbat, simp, schlep, palooka, lunkhead, chucklehead, dingleberry. I’m sure we can find an adequate replacement in there.

Dumb

SLUR, OLD-FASHIONED – not able to speak, especially because of being deaf

INFORMAL OFFENSIVE – stupid

I blame my bilingualism for not even knowing this was a “bad” word until recently. In English, as is often the case, the same word has two definitions, which are each translated differently in French. The slur-like synonym of “mute” is translated as “muet” (which is not a slur – I don’t even know if we have a slur for the inability to speak); the “informal offensive” sense of the word is simply “idiot,” “stupide,” “niaiseux,” “crétin,” whatever mild insult you feel like using at the moment.

I once attended a talk by linguist Steven Pinker in which he said swear words are more meaningful to us in our native language than in any other language we learn later in life. For me, having both French and English as native languages, that meant somehow much more strongly associating the word “dumb” with its insulting “foolish” sense than with its old-fashioned “mute” sense, now considered a slur.

This is not to say I consider every English speaker using the word as doing it knowingly with the slur-like definition in mind. In the case of a word with two or more definitions, weight should be given to the context in which a word is used to determine if it was meant to be innocent or not.

Blind

not able to perceive things with your eyes

The logic behind this one being frowned upon is, as I understand it, that the sentiment behind the expression “being blind to [something]” is a negative one, and as such implies that blindness, the physical inability to see, is bad. The same association is given to the expression “deaf to [something].”

As a writer, however, I don’t see these expressions as negative, but as neutral. We often use the word “see” as a synonym for “consider,” “understand”; I even did it in the previous sentence! I don’t think this use of “see” is particularly positive, so in the same way I don’t associate the word “blind” with negativity. Being blind to something, having a blindspot, to me just means not seeing something, physically or metaphorically, no more no less.

That being said, perhaps this has a root in my bilingualism also. “Blind,” as in “unable to see,” is “aveugle,” but the expression “to be blind to [something]” is often seen as “fermer les yeux sur [quelque chose],” literally “to close one’s eyes to [something].” It’s more of a voluntary action than being blind is. Maybe that’s why it doesn’t bother me?

Moron

NO LONGER USED, PSYCHOLOGY – someone whose intelligence has not developed fully

INFORMAL OFFENSIVE – a person that is very stupid, foolish, etc.

As you can see, this term has two official definitions, according to Antidote. As with the “dumb” example above, each definition has a different translation, but unlike it, the separation between the slur and the simple insult is less clear.

According to Antidote again, the psychological definition is no longer used, so I don’t think it’s the first thing one thinks of when calling someone a moron. However, the offensive sense is somehow greater (“dumb” was just “stupid,” but “moron” is “very stupid”!), which in my books puts the word very much in a grey zone, innocence-wise. I still wouldn’t call it a clear ableist slur, but I also wouldn’t be comfortable using it* unless the situation really warranted it.

*In public; I still have no problem calling myself a moron from time to time!

Cripple

OLD-FASHIONED or SLUR – someone who has problems walking due to a disability or injury

“Cripple” is one of those words that was used as an insult, and then was reclaimed by the community it was used against (in this case, the disability community). I know some people who call themselves cripples, or crips, although I personally don’t. The negative connotations associated with the word is still too strong for me to use it even about myself, and it makes me cringe when I see people on a Facebook ataxia support group I’m a part of asking, “will this make me a cripple?”

That being said, disabled people can call themselves whatever they want. That is their right. Ableds, however, do not have that right and the word “cripple” should never cross their lips.

The character Ivar the Boneless from Vikings (pictured above) calls himself a cripple all the time. This is, in my opinion, an appropriate use of the term. First of all, because it takes place in the 9^th century; and second of all, he’s disabled and he can call himself whatever he wants, it’s nobody’s place to police what someone wants to call themselves.

On the other hand, I frowned very hard when I read the following sentence in The Magicians, written by Lev Grossman: “Those backward-bending knees reminded him of the cripples or the gravely deformed.”

If we’re talking about the verb “to cripple” or the adjective “crippling,” however, as a writer I see it differently. Its official definition in those cases is “something that causes damage,” and as always using the context as a barometer, it can be an innocent word. In fact, I find it can be quite meaningful and useful.

Retard

[No illustration here, because obviously they’re all offensive.]

SLUR – a person who suffers from learning difficulties

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this is a Bad Word. There is no other meaning for it than the slur, so just… don’t use it. Ever.

As a language professional, I subscribe to the school of thought that words evolve. Whether I like it or not (and sometimes I really don’t), the meanings, the formal definitions, and even the spelling of words can change with time and use. What was a terrible turn of phrase a few centuries ago can be rendered innocent today, and vice-versa. More often than not, a word isn’t used in a vacuum, it has a history, a context, a situation in which it can be judged, to determine how it was meant by the speaker to be understood by the hearer.

But the fact that those are my beliefs absolutely does not mean that everybody else is wrong. Just because the word “idiot” does not bother me in the slightest does not mean that it can’t, or should not, bother anybody else. To each their own, and if a minor tweak in my language is going to make some people more comfortable with very minimal effort, then why wouldn’t I at least try?

So the point of this rambly seemingly pointless article is this: remember that words have meanings to certain groups of people that you, as a non-member of said group, may not be aware of. Nobody expects you to be 100% aware of everything all the time, but always be willing to learn, to accept corrections and to adapt.

In other words, don’t be a lunkhead.