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We may not know, but many of the words and phrases we use all day can casually disparage others. Many of our idioms and common language clichés could be called Ableist, or discriminatory for people with disabilities. Some of these terms have become rarer as more people become more aware of their problematic origins (kids today don’t like the “R-word” nearly as much as they did a few decades ago), but many of them are still used all the time.
61 million adults in the United States currently live with disabilities, according to CDC data. The sheer size of the disabled American population likely means you know someone who has one. (My brother has one leg, for example.) Being ableist in our language – unwanted or not – is something we should absolutely avoid. It confirms unconscious biases and reinforces an unnecessary divide between people from different communities.
To that end, here are some common phrases and words that you should absolutely remove from your vocabulary in the hope that they will eventually disappear from the dictionary altogether.
“It’s so lame.”
It’s easy to throw the word “lame” at someone or something that has let you down. But the word is defined by Oxford language dictionaries as “(especially of an animal) that cannot walk easily as a result of an injury or illness to the leg or foot.” Using it to describe a person is insulting –however, it was used just that way for years. So don’t use it today to signal your frustration that Best Buy PS5s sold out.
“Don’t be such a joke.”
You may still remember your days on the playground. Medically after National Institute of Health, “Spastic” is an outdated term that refers to the uncontrolled physical movements of a person, typically caused by damage to the spinal cord. In the UK, the word has become a common insult at the “R-word” level in the US, while in the US As such, the word is a less polluting substitute for “clumsy,” but both uses are for those in the know Suffering from disease, dehumanizing. So don’t use it to describe your dog’s strange behavior.
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“This is crazy / insane / insane.”
Calling someone crazy is fantastically dismissive considering how little we are usually aware of other people’s problems. As We wrote at the beginning of the year: “Most of the time it’s a word pulled out to describe women, and often used by men. If a friend or colleague is behaving in a way that you find uncomfortable or bothersome, find a precise way to talk to them about it. Don’t call them crazy. ”Don’t call them“ crazy ”either. And don’t describe the line at Burger King as “insane”.
Crippled, just generally
In the past, the word “crippled” describes a physical handicap due to an accident, a handicap during childbirth or another illness. You don’t have to refer to a marginalized community to accurately describe another person (or thing or system) that has a defect of one kind or another.
“He suffers [insert medical condition]. “
You might assume that someone with a disability “suffers” considering that their life may be shaped by circumstances other than your own. But people with disabilities are not as pessimistic about their lives as the writer Erica Mones wrote Pop Sugar earlier this year. “People often use ‘suffering’ to describe disability because they understand disability as a condition that causes only pain and suffering,” wrote Mones. “However, like everyone else, disabled people can lead full lives.” In short, don’t define someone by their disability; This is not your business.
“Falling on deaf ears”
This can be avoided particularly easily by speaking very precisely, because not listening or not wanting to understand is by far not the same as not being able to hear at all. The person you are describing is not deaf, so it’s probably best not to compare their reluctance to a community of one million people in the United States.
“I’ve been cleaning all weekend, I’m so compulsive.”
There are many other ways that one can describe a person’s accuracy or propensity to be clean and tidy without reference to this real personality disorder. To say that someone you know is “OCD” because they keep their desk more organized than yours is incredibly reductive.
Describing someone as “wheelchair-bound”
Although this term is often used without the intent to be offensive, such as “suffering” above, the use of this term to describe someone using a wheelchair ultimately defines the whole person through their disability, rather than simply seeing them as a facet to acknowledge his own life. It is easy to understand that there is so much more to a person than their physical abilities or limitations.
“You are such a lunatic / lunatic / psycho.”
If someone gets on your nerves or behaves disproportionately, it is generally not the right way to describe them in words that are often associated with marginalizing and influencing neuro-atypical people. These words “[capture] you in a snapshot as that dangerous, unpredictable, other soul, ”Christopher Lane, Professor at Northwestern University, said the BBC. People with mental illnesses are not to be ostracized, which is why you should avoid describing them with proven hurtful words like “crazy” or “psycho” – let alone throwing them at your friends in the middle of an argument.
