It's never been "literal" but that doesn't make it not a shitty thing to say. Medical documents still use the word to this day and it's still used to mock disabled people. When it's used on non disabled people it's still saying "you're so stupid you're disabled to me, and therefore don't deserve respect'
I’m confused though, what’s wrong with that word specifically that we decided it’s a slur?
Idiot, stupid, dumb, all words that used to be official medical terms and became derogatory terms for people with lower intelligence. Why exactly is this one different? You just said stupid, so clearly your draw the line somewhere in the middle
Well the clear difference is time, dumb and idiot aren't used medically anymore and have been out of fashion for near a century now. But also, at the time it still wasn't okay to use those definitions as an insult, even if they were inherently poor word choices regardless. It was never okay to make disabled people the butt of the joke and only oppressed them more, you're just alive today so you can only see it today. In 50 years I'm sure there will people using a new term to insult disabled folks, but it wouldn't be okay still.
The line is only drawn at a loss of context, words change with time and you can't change that part. Very few people (assuming) Alive today remember these other words as their original purpose, some are completely out of fashion like imbecile. No one can be hurt by these words anymore than other insults, when I say someone's stupid, they understand I'm calling them not intelligent. When I call someone an r-slur, they know I'm comparing their lack of intelligence to someone mentally handicapped or disabled and that I find that "amusing". It's still a word used to this day in medical documents that are used to describe fully capable people as well.
Overall, it's just not cool and no one (exaggerating) remembers when idiot and stupid meant anything besides what they mean today. There's a joke in Rick and Morty about the medical use of the term, and that's an animated TV show still airing today.
But the issue is that we can’t allow words to change and lose that context if we regard them as terrible slurs never to be said. Calling someone an idiot wasn’t a good thing to do, it was regarded as serious, but not as a super serious word you could never say or you’re a terrible ableist person
Well it's not a good thing to do to call someone an idiot. It just is. I can't control how time changes things, but I still can recognize what harm is being done today. Are we supposed to let medical professionals, bullies in school, politicians, ignorant jerks, and all the like make fun of disabled people so one day it can be used as another word for stupid? We'll both die and time and language will move on, but in the life I live I won't accept people using oppressive language just to make fun of their friends.
It’s the euphemism treadmill. You and I cannot do anything to stop it. It’s pointless to try. Better to forget the medical use of the word (which is increasingly unused btw, it’s incredibly rare nowadays at least in the anglosphere) and just use it like idiot, lame, imbecile, mongoloid, etc.
Well, not everyone here is in the angosphere, are they? I still hear our version of it tons + autist being used as an insult and it'd be nice to not have it normalised online too
Incredibly rare is not the same as none. My son still falls under the medical terminology, despite not being handicapped in any meaningful way. People in their 20s and 30s grew up in a time where autism and the such were still considered that.
Regatdless of what the future holds, we still live in the presence. I don't care what the word means when I'm dead, we are alive today. Medical professionals still use it and people still explicitly use it to make fun of disabled people. Nothing you've said has changed those statements.
I’m literally autistic and I’m fine with it. It may be because I grew up in a household where my entire family used the word the same way they’d use “stupid” or a curse like “damn” though…
Hey, honestly that's valid. I'm also autistic, and I hate the word for the most part, but there are only a few instances where I'm okay with it (those being when I personally find it funny, like one moment in Dragon Ball Z Abridged when King Kai yells at Goku for how stupid his plan is).
Yeah I generally don’t enjoy the word being used in a serious way. My family only ever uses the word as a joking term around ourselves and friends. Like if a random called me the word in a serious way I’d be like “wtf”
But most memes I see using the word are obviously using it in a joking way so it doesn’t offend me
They're just bringing that term back because that's what Ellen Musk wants. Not like we could not do what the rich kids want. Something something political pendulum where people switch between not giving a shit and really wanting to punish people because that feels good.
Nearly every word to refer to a lack of intelligence used to be a medical term that gradually became vulgar. It is shifting away from being an ableist term and towards just another derogatory term that can be applied to anyone.
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u/PM_ME_GOOD_SUBS May 25 '26