A cycle in colours red, pink and grey with 'A new word comes in' arrow to 'Chosen clinical word' arrow clockwise to 'linked with learning disability' arrow clockwise to 'becomes a slur' clockwise arrow to 'needs to be replaced'

CONTENT WARNING: This blog contains ableist slurs with the purpose of understanding and challenging how our ableist attitudes shape and form our language. For ableist slurs not to evolve attitudes need to change.

We give words their power.

The negativity of our words depends on our attitudes not the letters it contains. Words surrounding disability have a life cycle of being used clinically, associated with people of learning disabilities, become a slur (because of our ableist, offensive attitudes to this community of people) and then another word takes its place in the clinical world before the cycle begins again.

A friend once received a call from her son’s teacher explaining he had sworn in class. He had just joined a school with a specialist unit for hearing impaired children. The teacher described how he used the sign for ‘shit’ in the classroom and that it was completely unacceptable. It then transpired that he used it to ask to go to the toilet. When my friend heard the description of the sign, she realised it was simply what they had been taught as the sign for needing a poo.

In their household that sign, or word, wasn’t offensive because everyone understood it to mean the same thing, going to the toilet.

Offence wasn’t intrinsic – it was assigned

During my nurse training, I read words like retarded, spastic and handicapped in textbooks. They were clinical words to describe a condition without malice or negativity. They were neutral, clinical words in academic books evolving their ideas and aspirations for care of people with disabilities.

What happened to make them unacceptable?

People’s attitudes happened.

We have a culture which sees disability as something to be pitied, overcome or hidden. It is acceptable to link words associated with lower intelligence to slurs from our playgrounds to politicians. There is a hierarchy of disability with those who have a learning disability at the bottom.

Today, instead of now unacceptable words, learning difficulties, special needs and a person with a disability function as replacements (opting for person first language). But there is an emerging population of disabled people who are claiming back these terms. Words such as disability or learning disabled are neutral words until the negativity of our ableist culture taints it.

The negativity of a word depends on our attitudes

The ‘R’ word is derogatory because it is used to deride someone, who isn’t as intelligent and therefore not as valuable and worth making fun of. Imagine a world where the words to describe a person with a learning disability had the same esteem and reverence as a word describing an Oxford Graduate or Nobel Price winner.

Imagine a world where the words to describe a person with a learning disability had the same esteem and reverence as a word describing an Oxford Graduate or World War Veteran.

We give words their power.

Our challenge is to change the attitudes of the people within the culture speaking those words rather than the words themselves. Only when society starts speaking about physical and cognitive disabilities with value, dignity and admiration, will such words forever cease to be offensive.

What words do you use, what do you avoid?
How do we break this cycle?

Rachel’s experience and style have evolved over the last decade, so we’ve updated and adapted the content to reflect that growth. This post is a revised version of a blog from 2014. You can find the original here.