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...

Tutter - her ankles are as beautiful and flawless as the rest of her!! .
Descriptions will always have skin/eye/hair colour in them I should imagine. As long as that's all they are - a colour with nothing else implied - I can't see the problem.
If someone were to describe her as "The half-caste (I believe that's a no-no) bird from MI2. You know great tits... Not bad looking for one of them . . . Now that would be offensive for hundreds of reasons.

completely disagree with your interpretation of language there. would you routinely call a child of unmarried parents a "bastard"?

ah, now i beg to differ. i believe she does not have great tits

no, I would imagine tits to be v poor [brightens]

afaiac grey the other problem with your posts is that they are rendered uninteresting by their pointlessness

Tut - Can't remember to be honest!!!
Grey - I disagree again. If I'd just met Emkana and described her son as a midget - in all innocence and as a word I'd used all my life I would imagine that she would be able to tell that I hadn't deliberately insulted her son. She would however most likely say I really don't like that term/find it offensive. What would be an insult is if I then continued to use it.

emkana yanbu IMO
what the lady calls herself is irrelevant. the term is offensive to many and others shouldn't repeat it.
I think mn has a few odd people who are just stirring at the moment.

Tutter, you said >>maybe i'm being dim, but why wouldn't you describe her that way?

ah, well, there is always pedantry. we are all mixed race really, but for clarity's sake i would use "mixed race" when someone's skin tone strongly suggested two parents of very different skin tones. thandie newton a good example

(sorry, arf at myself for "two" parents) (as opposed to...?)

Tutter, I know you mean 'mixed race' as a polite term. However there really have been people objecting to that. What are you supposed to do to keep everyone happy?

Littlelapin, thank you. The song refers to someone who is a midgit, but is clearly not meant as offensive from the context.

So the official word from Littlelapin is that it's not the word, but the way it's meant

My work here is done

grey are you always this irritating?

there are some words that should never be usedever
I cannot understand why people can't just accept some words offend and get over it. I managed it with the word "stupid" it isn't hard to use other words. there are thousands out there.

Zippi, I do my best

Really gone now as have things I must do.

zippi it is called attention seeking

well cant you learn to be entertaining at the same time then instead of just tedious

I remember a lovely man in a supermarket gently explaining to my ds (4 at the time) that he was not a dwarf (as my ds had so politely exclaimed "Look mummy, that man's a dwarf"), but was a midget. He cheerfully went into the difference between the two, and left my son incredibly proud of his new knowledge.

My point being that he was entirely happy and comfortable with this description of his condition. Surely whether or not the description is offensive to the prospective contestant is the important point? Is it possible that this is the term they have used to describe themselves? In which case it is appropriate.

Midgetism (?) and dwarfism are different things, so it is not simply a case of one being a less offensive term.

Happy to be corrected and expand my ever condensing knowledge

Interesting that midget seen as offensive - I use it myself (note to self: must stop )

Is this Interesting Argument no. 442 on MN in the last few weeks? Are we all getting thoughtful and intellectual in our old age (well, some of us )

sorry i haven't read the whole thread justs came into ask what are the correct terms?
i always thought that dwarfs were people with a thyroid gland abnormality that stunted their growths and gave them disproportionate arms and legs. and midgets where of a very short stature but proportionatly so.

before i get flamed i'm not trying to say these terms are right, i'm asking what is the now pc term for people who fit into the categories i described and had up until this point thought were called midgets and dwarfs as a purely descriptive term.

anyone?

I think you're right, dwarfism is a condition, midget is just short, just like giant means over 6'7" so just tall people and then people with giantitus have a condition, right?

the BOD you are right. But apparently in recent years the medical term midget has been misused. It looks like now the technical terms are proportional and disproportional dwarfism.

Quite right youknownothingofthecrunch
Btw the shortness of the arms and legs is not caused by the thyroid gland, it's a genetic abnormality.

I really can't see why some of you get so worked up at the suggestion that it would just be a nice and polite thing to do to avoid terminology that might upset/offend some people. I really don't get it. Okay so some of you might disagree that a particular term is insulting or offensive, but a significant proportion of those who are affected by dwarfism do feel that the term "midget" should be avoided, and IMO that should be enough.