There was a conversation awhile back about how any term used to describe someone with a disability eventually becomes a slur and history tends to back that up, but I’d say ‘special needs’ is probably about the least offensive qualifier we have today.
I did theatre in high school (a decade ago) and we performed the straight play The Boys Next Door, a story about four intellectually disabled men living together with the help of their caretaker. The original show was written circa 1988, and uses “retarded” as the word to describe the men. Obviously for a high school play, we couldn’t use that.
Our director interfaced with a local group to determine what the correct terminology should be, and over the course of rehearsal, we changed the phrase from mentally challenged to intellectually challenged to intellectually disabled. It was important to us to make sure we got it right, but it was also surprising that the term changed very quickly.
Not sure what the politically correct term is nowadays, I try and avoid the R slur. Point is, this is a dumb greentext among the many I have saved; I Guess I could have picked a different one.
There was a conversation awhile back about how any term used to describe someone with a disability eventually becomes a slur and history tends to back that up, but I’d say ‘special needs’ is probably about the least offensive qualifier we have today.
For 4chan, that’s like a miracle.
The euphemism treadmill
I did theatre in high school (a decade ago) and we performed the straight play The Boys Next Door, a story about four intellectually disabled men living together with the help of their caretaker. The original show was written circa 1988, and uses “retarded” as the word to describe the men. Obviously for a high school play, we couldn’t use that.
Our director interfaced with a local group to determine what the correct terminology should be, and over the course of rehearsal, we changed the phrase from mentally challenged to intellectually challenged to intellectually disabled. It was important to us to make sure we got it right, but it was also surprising that the term changed very quickly.
Not sure what the politically correct term is nowadays, I try and avoid the R slur. Point is, this is a dumb greentext among the many I have saved; I Guess I could have picked a different one.
It is called the euphemism treadmill.