I hate this trend in society! A party chooses a name for themselves, that name becomes part of the lexicon and associated with negative aspects, and then they simply change their name again…and again and again.
One name that we’re all familiar with is “Mentally Retarded”, its now a dirty word, and one of the name changes in my lifetime was “Special”. Of course now the term “Special” can be interchanged with the slur “Retarded”, and nothing is gained. And in the end “Mentally Retarded” was an accurate medical term. You have a 40 year old man who has limited verbal skills and wears a diaper because of his mental development, his mental development was indeed retarded (slowed) by their affliction.
Of course when a group rises above their lower situation, they don’t seem to much care what they’re called. The Jews are still called “The Jews”, you can use the term as a slur, but they don’t care, as a people the Jews are doing damn well for themselves. Sticks and stones.
In the January issue of the journal, Epilepsia, Doctors Kim and colleagues from the Department of Pediatrics at the Severance Children’s Hospital at the Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea, describes how the Korean epilepsy community changed the name of epilepsy in that country.
…Because epilepsy has been considered to be the consequence of “evanescent spiritual forces and even demonic possession,” the Korean epilepsy community changed the Korean name for epilepsy to a different term that roughly translates to cerebral electric disorder.
First up in America we’ve already played the stupid game, most articles I read about epilepsy will often lump it into the more general “Seizure Disorder”, and of course we no longer have “Grand Mal” and “Petite Mal” in the medical lexicon, its the more confusing “Generalized Seizure” and “Complex Partial Seizure”, which just confuses people. I don’t bother using those terms when talking to laypeople about the disease because you’re just wasting your time confusing them, or trying to teach them new and confusing terms.
Also I’d like to shame the people in Korea a bit. Once you grow the fuck up and sell regular fans and set aside your junk-science superstitions of BS like “Fan Death” we might consider letting you sit at the big-kid’s table.
Until then call things whatever crap you want, but keep it to yourself while you eat out of a plastic bowl with a clown printed on the bottom!
H/T Mrs. Weer’d
