to be shocked and upset to see the term "midget" used in reference to one of the alleged new BB housemates

[emkana]

The woman the media are talking about didn't actually go in tonight, but in all the papers, even the bl*dy Independent, they call her a "midget belly dancer".

My ds has dwarfism and it makes me feel very to think that he will come across terminology like this...

How do those people who say that "you shouldn't define a person by their physical characteristics" feel about the phrase "those two men".

i am old 51 so when i was young all sorts of things were normal

but i am not incapable of having kept up with the times

Well I have decided on a phrase - he has dwarfism, full stop.

The attitude will be something that will largely be down to him, not me.

And I am convinced that there are plenty of people who can see past the short stature and appreciate the full person, that is not just wishful thinking.

I don't think it's entirely wrong to use a physical characteristic to describe people: when someone - 'Which one's the manager?' 'the blonde/tall/thin/Chinese/green-haired one' and if you are describing one individual to another to leave out a physical characteristic that's extremely noticeable would be silly.

those two men isnt the same as cute blonde or muscly mathematician

i think they are all a bit boak

especially as that tends to be never developed beyond that in the media so once you have your two word description it never changes whatever way you might develop

so if you start off as midget belly dancer you will be called that for the next however long you are mentioned iunt he media

Yes but it makes a difference whether you say

"the person with dwarfism", or even "the little person"

or "the midget"

for reasons explained below.

On the TV programme "Born to be different" there was a boy with dwarfism, his friend was asked to describe him and he said "he's blond, has blue eyes, likes playing football" - didn't even occur to him to mention the fact he was short. Thought that was lovely.

there is a guy on my course that i wanted to identify to someone else on my course as sitting next to me when i do a cad class

now for some reason i had a mental blank over his name so i had to describe him

and the one very noticeable thing about him appearance wise is that he has terrible acne

but my head would not allow me to say you know that guy with the terrible acne so i had to describe him in a more imaginative way

there were only two of us there no one would know what i was saying but that is just how i think

i very much doubnt he likes people syhaing you know the guy with acne so i wouldnt say it either but even if he went on bb and used that as his usp i still think it would be odd

but i am quite happy to be educated

and yes defining characterisitc and description are two different things

With reference to your OP, I have to make a confession, em.

I think that midget sounds better than dwarf. Midget, to my mind, has an affectionate quality to it. dwarf (sorry, my CAP d isn't working), is extremely definitive.

He's a very young child, and children of his age will associate (going forward) with Snow White, etc.

Aggh, it's a tough one to ask, but I will say again; you've got to wrap your head around this now, before it's too late.

Find the word you like, and stay with it.

Emkana:

'And I am convinced that there are plenty of people who can see past the short stature and appreciate the full person, that is not just wishful thinking'

Hate to say it - but it is wishful thinking. There is noone who will not 'notice' when they meet him. I am sure that the vast majority of people will see past it after they have got to know him, but it will be the first thing people notice, whether you like it or not.

actually regardless of whether midget is the right word using it as her usp makes it seem as tho that is why she has been picked to be on big brother

that i think is what i find objectionable

Surely she is free to describe herself any way she chooses?

do you think she thought she would be picked because she is a midget?

and if so is that a good or a abd thing that that is how she mostly feels she is interesting or good tv material?

I have no idea. One must presume that she thought it relevant, whether as a defining point of her character (like many fat people say they are fat, or gay people say they are gay) or as a 'selling tool', a uniqueness that she may have felt would help her get onto the show. Who knows?

I don't think it is for any of us to decide if it is a good or bad thing. Its really up to the individual to whom it applies to make that decision for themselves.

i think it does make a difference because if i watched tv which because most of it is cak like bb i rarely do

i dont want to watch people because they have some point of difference which can be lazily used to pick them out from a crowd

i want to watch because they are interesting/creative/entertaining

but i appreciate that that isnt the point that the op was making

I agree with you.

However, I don't think that the fact someone describes themselves, or indeed is described by, a physical characteristic, makes them any less interesting, creative or entertaining.

I, as I should imagine thousands of other people across the country, learned a huge amount about tourettes that I did not know before after the year Pete was on BB. I think it has done wonders for tourettes sufferers as well, as it brought it to the pubic attention, and in effect normalised it, which can never be anything but good.

I do agree - this chat is far from the point in the OP!

This lady in question has just been in the Big Brother house in Australia - it has to be the same lady, Rima.
She is a very confident and sassy lady and has hit the media big time over here in Oz. She left the Big Bro house due to breaking her leg.

Isn't midget a term, like giant, to describe someone of a certain height. It's just been used wrongly to talk of short people a lot, I think you have to be under 4'7"????

I think this is the lady that you are talking about

Rima, Big Brother Australia

My Goodness emkana, what a beautiful child

zippitippitoes, it may be different to say "cute blonde" or "muscly mathematician" as those are not descriptions, but judgements (harmless imo anyway)
We seem to be saying that when trying to indicate a person you can not say "the tall one, the short one" etc but it's ok to refer to their genitals as in "those two men"
I should think that many men would object to being seen as simply an accessory to their genitalia! Some might even be part way through a sex change and be terribly offended by the assumptions based on their appearance.
If we're going to object to soome of these identifications by appearance we must stop them all.
So anyone saying "those men" or "that woman" is being offensive and needs to have it pointed out to them. It's just a question of politeness. I don't see how anyone here could object. It's up to mumsnet to educate them.

well i dont really agree greyriverside

but

the whole bb thing is something which i find died as far as being any kind of interesting experiment for me many years ago

as did most of tv

i have a great tv but switch it on about once a month if that unless i watch a dvd or football

Oh as for BB I don't like it much, but it's voluntary to join in and voluntary to watch. I figure that as with eastenders and such that most of those complaining must be putting it on to have something to complain about.

I'm serious about banning the phrase "that man" if this new 'wordist' movement is to have any future. If we plan to ban 1000s of innocently used every day words then we need to be consistent and I don't see how anyone could object to 'men' and 'women' being included on the list.

In fact I'm thinking that "boy/girl/child" counts too so saying that someone 'has a lovely child' is quite offensive. You shouldn't refer to anyone unless you know their exact name and full medical history and have consulted a look up table of currently disallowed words

It's just a question of educating people.