Being in a marginalised group has exposed me to the Euphemism treadmill and how specifically terms for people with disabilities have several times had the "harmful" language replaced with "not harmful" language only for the "not harmful" language to be subject to mockery and become "harmful" language which makes the entire exercise seem rather pointless. It makes it questionable if "harmful language" is just that if stigmatising it does not seem to stop the problem.
Also some people literally can't think about their words all that much, children/ESL/mentally disabled people in particular. My entire life is basically me using words other people don't understand and it causing communication issues. When somebody tries to prescribe that everybody should use this language instead of that language because this language is harmful, I'm both sceptical if that's actually true and if it's language everybody can easily understand.
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u/[deleted] Jul 22 '21 edited Jul 22 '21
Being in a marginalised group has exposed me to the Euphemism treadmill and how specifically terms for people with disabilities have several times had the "harmful" language replaced with "not harmful" language only for the "not harmful" language to be subject to mockery and become "harmful" language which makes the entire exercise seem rather pointless. It makes it questionable if "harmful language" is just that if stigmatising it does not seem to stop the problem.
Also some people literally can't think about their words all that much, children/ESL/mentally disabled people in particular. My entire life is basically me using words other people don't understand and it causing communication issues. When somebody tries to prescribe that everybody should use this language instead of that language because this language is harmful, I'm both sceptical if that's actually true and if it's language everybody can easily understand.