thismeintiel said:
1. These words are offensive/hateful by your definition. And that's the problem with "hateful/offensive" words. Every person is offended by different things. Really any words can be derogatory depending on how you use them. And quite a few people are just out to find the next offensive thing for the sake of virtue signalling. Just like how actual medical classifications slowly become "offensive," so they must be changed. As someone posted earlier, this is how the classification was changed to retard, as the ones used before were "offensive," and then changed to mentally disabled. And I bet before I die, that will be deemed offensive and changed, yet again. Crippled was changed to physically handicapped, and we are already seeing some people being offended by that. It's just pathetic really. 2. Because people are not equating a group of people. They aren't insulting truly autistic people, or gays, when they use those terms. Language is fluid. It's the reason people use homophobe, even though that word should describe someone who is actually afraid of a gay person, not someone who dislikes them. Of course, that word, as well as racist and misogynist, are thrown around so loosely, they have almost lost all meaning. Anyway, gay meant happy at first. Then, the gay community took that word to describe themselves. Well, straight people just took it back, making it mean bad/lame. It's not an insult to gay people, it's just being used in a different way. If gay people don't like it, they can either get over it, or find another word. |
I actually have just realized my own hypocrisy because I used childish as an insult in this same thread. Maybe my stance on this matter has changed.
