What is going on with personal attacks/disablist language being left to stand?!

Sorry, Maggie. I'm going to disengage now.

Everyone putting up with MNHQ inaction on disablist language

This is going well

Predictable, I guess

I don't really know what Jeanne's suggestion I use Google was supposed to mean.

So given the context of the post, you didn't think that a quick "just to check, Stay, did you mean...?"

Imbecile is a really offensive word. I was shocked by the statement, genuinely shocked. There is a world of difference between 'is" and "was"

OMG.

No one doubts you know what the word means. People are questioning your interpretation of Stay's post of four days and five pages ago.

Wow, Lass, that's pretty offensive.

That post was up for a few days. Many people with day to day experience of having an SN child did not interpret it as you did. Many people posting on MN are doing so while the kettle boils, from their phones, whilst keeping half an eye on a child or a baby monitor. If you are going to mark posters out of ten for spelling and grammar and insist that your interpretation is correct in the face of general bafflement from other posters, then it's going to be really hard to engage with you.

Oh Jeanne did you bother reading the wiki link explaining the usage of the word? That was one of the results of "is imbecile an acceptable term?"

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile

Or were you just trying to be patronising and meaning I didn't know what it meant at all?

Yes Jeanneit would be really useful if I told a client that what the law "is" is really what the law used to be.

Perhaps you should Google verbs and tenses? You seem to be having difficulty with them.

Oddly I Googled several things and didn't find any results which supported the suggestion imbecile "is' used now in the sense quoted. I did find several saying it was part of a disused classification system.

I wonder do you call anyone an "imbecile "?

It's good that this is an Internet forum and that Stay doesn't work for you then, isn't it?

I find the use of the present tense extremely odd in Stay's post. If I were reviewing a letter or an article which used "is" in that context it would be handed back for rewriting.

It's very clear from the context, Lass.

It's interesting how often your interpretation is different from the majority. I don't know if that's perhaps p an artefact of a job where everything must be very precisely worded.

It would have been better to use "was". Stay responded to Purdie's question in the present tense. It's not clear to me Stay was disagreeing; she is distinguishing it from "thicko" which is unacceptable.

Stay had just stated that moron was used to freely and this was Purdie's response:
"I agree regarding the word retarded but moron....where do you draw the line? What about imbecile? Thicko? I see lots of use of the word thicko and yet I know to some mn-ers the term idiot is offensive."

X post.

Given Purdie had just implied she thought imbecile and Thicko were on a par and both acceptable, or os clear to me from the context that Stay disagreed on imbecile.

It's from Staywithme when she responded to Purdie (a notoriously outspoken poster) on p1. Lass, i do not think Staywithme finds the term acceptable. Here's the post in full:

"Imbecile is a term used to describe persons with learning difficulties whereas thicko is a term used to describe someone who behaves in a silly way. Thicko is not a term used to describe someone with learning difficulties. The point of moving on as a civilised society is learning not to use terms that offend those of colour, religion, those with a disability. Where do you suggest we draw the line Purdie?"

This is the full post from the first page. No reference to it being historic use. And it's a vile term anyway. If cretin and moron are unacceptable imbecile is no better. They all stem from what I understand is now discredited categorisation from the US in the early part of the last century.

Staywithme

Imbecile is a term used to describe persons with learning difficulties whereas thicko is a term used to describe someone who behaves in a silly way. Thicko is not a term used to describe someone with learning difficulties. The point of moving on as a civilised society is learning not to use terms that offend those of colour, religion, those with a disability. Where do you suggest we draw the line Purdie?

Jeanne and Breaca the poster I quoted said it is used to describe a person with learning difficulties. Not was in distant and less unenlightened times.

sorry, i'm not sure who you are quoting.

I know it used to be a medical term in the same way cretin and moron were. The poster I quoted seems to be suggesting it is still in use or is still acceptable - whether in it's medical sense or its common usage.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile

Lass, it used to be a medical term, in the same way that 'retarded' was (and 'idiot' for that matter)

A person of moderate to severe mental retardation having a mental age of from three to seven years and generally being capable of some degree of communication and performance of simple tasks under supervision. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.

You are happy to use "imbecile " to describe some one with learning difficulties?

Oh and googling brings this as the first results

imbecile
??mb?si?l/?
nouninformal
noun: imbecile; plural noun: imbeciles
1.
a stupid person.
synonyms: fool, idiot, cretin, moron, dolt, halfwit, ass, dunce, dullard, simpleton, nincompoop, blockhead, ignoramus, clod; More
informaldope, thickhead, ninny, chump, dimwit, dummy, dum-dum, dumb-bell, jackass, bonehead, fathead, numbskull, dunderhead, airhead, pinhead, lamebrain, pea-brain, birdbrain, dipstick, donkey, noodle;
informalnit, nitwit, twit, numpty, clot, muppet, plonker, berk, prat, pillock, wally, wazzock, divvy;
informalbozo, turkey, goofus;
vulgar slangknobhead;
vulgar slangasshat
"I'd have to be an imbecile to do such a thing"
antonyms: genius