to think Clare Short should apologise for using the term..

[blackeyedsusan]

"mongal baby!"

radio four, front row, tonight.

I think she needs re-educating. fast!

Have to say I went off Clare Short 15 years ago after the volcano erupted in Montserrat, aid was sent but the people there asked for more help and Short got a bit narked (allegedly) and said 'They'll be asking for golden elephants next'. Or words to that effect.

That episode suggested she might not have been the most caring person in the world.

To me, it's not about caring or not, it's just basic ignorance from someone who is still to some extent a public figure; she just should know better than ever to say that.

My MiL sometimes uses inappropriate words to describe people who are not white, but she is in her 80s and even then, I cringe inwardly and gently correct her. Clare Short - how old is she anyway? 66 well I have never used that word nor ever would, and I am less than 20 years younger than her.

Rhiinestone, I find your comment almost as upsetting as Clare Short's.

Was the term Mongoloid once an acceptable term but due to it's abuse and shortening to 'Mong' that it became unacceptable? Growing up I would hear the kids at school call each other mongs and I knew it was a cruel thing to say. But, if Clare Short is still using the phrase makes me wonder if at one time ( a long long time ago) it was an accepted word or that she is just totally pig ignorant.

Halfpastwine- I've never heard of mongol of mongoloid but have heard of Mong as an insult and wondered where it came from, I had no idea that it was related to people with downs syndrome.
I should imagine that 'mongoloid' used to be an accepted if no very nice sounding word like 'spastic' and 'retard' we're also accepted but are now not.
In recent years I've heard the phrase 'Mong out' to mean chilling or getting stoned, I wonder if this is also rooted in 'mongaloid'

'Spastic' used to be acceptable (there was, maybe still is a Spastic Society) but I don't know anymore. I have heard this shortened to 'Spacca' which I absolutely detest and will pull up anyone I hear using it. I also don't like the word 'retard' either. It is a shame that what were used as perfectly good words have been abused making them now sound so wrong. The same goes for 'Special Needs', I hear people taking the piss out of each other calling each other ' Spekkle' and 'window lickers'. Where is the respect? It makes me feel so .

Around 1980 there was an ad campaign with slogan 'You say Mongol. We say Downs Syndrome. His friends call him David.' I remember being told in Assembly that Mongol wasn't a nice word to use - not that I met anyone with Downs for another 15 years.

Mong out meaning stoned or acting stupid must derive from that and is used insultingly. Though teenagers I know use mong short for mongrel, often as an insult or non-insulting term for someone mixed race.

The Spastic Society is now called Scope. It changed because of the use of spastic in a pejorative sense.
'Spastic' is still used in medicine, as an adjective, to describe muscles in a state of contraction - it's a valid use of the term in that context.

Clare Short should know better and should be roundly criticised for her lax terminology - a muttered apology is better than nothing but she should be taken to task over it and make sure that something like this doesn't happen again.

I thought I was listening to Clare Fox, that explains why she sounded as if she was on sedatives compared to normal brisk delivery!

Was taken aback as that's such an old term but sounded like a genuine error, brain stuck and dredging up wrong term.

"Mongol" was an accepted term many years ago (60s, 70s) so maybe she did make a slip - happens to older people sometimes

"idiot", "spastic", "cripple" etc all used to be widely accepted terms, even in the medical profession. They have been disused after ignorant people started using them as insults.

If Clare Short apologised, then she has already apologised.
Rhinestone, you lost any credibility and moral high ground with your first post. However, you have apologised, too. Like I said, easy to make a slip.

apologising doesn't always work.
not when you have used a term like that, as mud will stick and you will always be linked to being a twat

Some tabloid the other day showed a picture of the little girl shot and paralysed in gang violent S London with the caption 'when will I walk again mummy?: parents can't bear to tell her she's crippled.'

Astounding.

She clearly didn't mean offence, she used a word she would have grown up with, she was (rightly) pulled up on it and apologised.

No need for a witch hunt surely?

(Apologies to witches everywhere)

I am always astounded at the way the old chestnut"a word she grew up with" is dragged out.
would you say the same if she had ised a racist term?

she is a twat

yes, i think i would. if she'd used the term in the context here, purely to describe something where (if you recall) she was full of praise and saying that these particular scenes of the film were the stand-out for her, and terribly moving, i think if she apologised immediately i'd be okay with that. surprised at her continued use of such language, but okay after the apology.

anyway, like lottieb i think she just had one of those 'on air' moments where her brain went looking for the right word and came up with the wrong one.

I think this should be kept in proportion. She meant no harm (in fact she said that the scene in the film where Sara Palin met Downs children had moved her to tears) , but simply used what was the PC term in the 50s and 60s instead of the current PC term - a venial offence surely? Anyway Mark Lawson picked her up on it and she apologised.

Originally the term "mongol" was meant to be stricty descriptive - such children were supposed to have an appearance reminiscent of Mongolians. It was not meant to be disparaging, but was an improvement on the previous terms such as idiot or imbecile.

Of course times change and what was once PC (though the term didn't exist back then) may eventually become not so.

It's a transformation that happens all the time, for example the "neutral" phrase "care in the community" can be used insultingly in certain contexts.

*Some tabloid the other day showed a picture of the little girl shot and paralysed in gang violent S London with the caption 'when will I walk again mummy?: parents can't bear to tell her she's crippled.'

Astounding.*

I assume you are taken aback by the use of the word 'crippled', I'm having to re-think this as I would not have been astounded.

I would certainly be shocked to hear someone refered to as a cripple, but somehow the phrase above doesn't have the same ring about it. I could be very wrong.

Would you be astounded to hear that a country had 'crippling debt'?

"Sara Palin met Downs children"

ffs it is children with Downs syndrome.
they are children first

Sorry it is from the DM

"Ms Short apologised and said no insult was intended.
She said: The word simply came to me wrongly. There was a family next door to me when I was a child that had a much loved child with Down's who was a friend.
'In those days the word was mongol. I presume that is why the word came into my head I apologised as soon as I was corrected.
'There was no insult given or meant.'"

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2125458/Clare-Short-facing-criticism-use-word-mongol-Radio-4-interview-children-Downs-syndrome.html#ixzz1rA5j3tzm

Whilst it was an unacceptable term to use, I do think it was carelessness and not an attempt to offend at all.

I am always astounded at the way the old chestnut"a word she grew up with" is dragged out.
would you say the same if she had ised a racist term?

But there are valid cases where words were once acceptable which are no longer due to misuse and context. See upthread.

you're very easily amazed 2shoes

I do know that. and that is why I posted what I did

there you go, she had a brain melt. easily done in an interview situation, only the scurrilous would seek to profit by it.

Bah - She has committed the terrible sin in PC-World of uttering last season's phrases, so she is Out, not In.

It amuses me that Ms short, who was not averse t o playing th same game when younger, has tripped up, but by any rational test this is now all being overblown.

Were her intentions good? Yes
Has she apologised? Yes

Only those who wish to be offended will now be offended.