Whilst swearing on MN is ok, there are some words that are simply not acceptable.

[mamazon]

Please, before posting could you just do a brief speel check to ensure you have not used a word that is socially unacceptable.

Whilst we are all adults and as such we wont all faint at the use of words such as fuck/shit etc there are some words that simply are not to be used.

really. there is never any need to use some words.

I doubt very much that anyone here would even dream of including words like nigger/queer/paki etc etc in a post.
We all accept that they are offensive and wrong.

Please could we have a similar stance given to words that are offensive to those who have disabilities (or just those who are not ignorant morons) please.

I am specifically thinking of words such as "retard" "spaz" "mong"

all of which i am noticing with increased frequency on the boards of late.
Whilst MN is getting much better at deleting such offensive posts, if we could just make it clear that such vile use of language is wrong then hopefully we can prevent the need.

MORON
n.
A stupid person; a dolt.
Psychology. A person of mild mental retardation having a mental age of from 7 to 12 years and generally having communication and social skills enabling some degree of academic or vocational education. The term belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered offensive.

anopther to add to the list then.
consider myself well and truly slapped on the wrist

Has anyone noticed that in the USA it is acceptable to use 'handicap' and the disabled toilet is the 'handicap stall'?

A pretty good Wki summary which explains why it's not so clear cut....

Context and intent is always important, and often difficult to assess on a internet forum.

Agree OP

It does my head in.

I work in a university and "retard" is very widely used among students, just in general conversation

Seriously I hear it a few times a day just walking around campus

It depresses me that these words seem to have come full circle and become somehow acceptable again. It reminds me of ironic sexism in a way

all fair enough but I have to admit I chortled @ 'Please, before posting could you just do a brief speel check...'

Can I say Malco (serious question). It is one of my favorite words-that-I-learnt-from-Neighbours (Australian soap not next door).

"Man I'm such a Malco" (said she after tripping up on the front step for the 3rd time that week)

Whippet I feel you are nit picking here

I notice on the page you linked to that all the examples mamazon quotes are deemed unacceptable or no longer used

doggie - re words coming 'full circle' - see the wiki piece about words being 'reclaimed' by the groups they refer to..

"Finally, some people with disabilities are choosing to reclaim certain terms, using them to describe themselves with high-impact effect. This reclaiming of hurtful words takes the power away from those who intend to use them to put others down. Reclaiming a term gives it a positive meaning when used by the people it describes, but it is still considered a slur when used by others"

You see - it's so complex...

Why is it OK for Jonathan Ross to have Four Poofs and piano????

No, I'm not nit-picking, and I already said I agreed to a large extent, but I do find mamazon's haughty and supercilious tone taher patronising and 'little England'

From a global perspective it's just simply not as cut & dried as she makes out.

And it's not true that all the words she refers to are deemed offensive:

e.g. Re Spaz "However, the term is largely nonoffensive in American English, denoting general clumsiness, often associated with hyperactivity or excessive energy."

But this is a predominately UK site isn't it? Do I care what people on sites in the USA think?
If you want me to pop to the SN section and ask what the concensus is on 'spaz' I can. I think I know the answer though.

I agree with the OP. Mind you I think people really do come down like a tonne of bricks on people who say retard, spaz, mong anyway. We are pretty well regulated in this respect.

Somne people genuinely use words out of ignorance. I used to use the word cretin (seemed a good, Blackadder-sih word). However my boss years ago said that his daughter was born without her adrenal gland (iirc) and the old word for people like this was cretin - sufferers generally had stunted growth and suffered in adult life. That was news to me and don't use the word now.

Agree pag - don't care if handicapped, spaz, retart are generally used in conversation in america, the vast majority of the users of this site are UK based and therefore we should not use the words imo.

It may have been pituitary gland.

It's the thyroid gland actually (I know I am a sad bastard, just looked it up).

at saddo

I have just bored everybody to death.

Yes I get it Whippet

But the OP is about MN specifically and this is a UK based website which is largely used by UK based people (and those who are not UK based know this is a UK site)

so I still feel in the context of this thread you're nit picking.

Sorry pag has said that already.

When I talked about the words coming full circle I was not talking about them being "reclaimed"

The students peppering their chat with these words are not disabled and reclaiming insults. they are just being stupid and insensitive.

er...I'm not sure that you can say any internet forum is predominantly a 'UK site'
Last time I looked, it was called the World Wide Web for a reason...

I agree that for the most part, posters from the UK are using these words offensively - perhaps deliberately, or perhaps through ignorance, and that's unjustified. However if a poster from the US (and how would you necessarily know?)uses 'spaz' for example, then there's no need to sanctimoniously jump down their throat about it.For them it isn't 'wrong' and any amount of jumping up and down, saying 'it's wrong because I say so' is irrelevant...

I lived in America for a while, and I know what a minefield it is.

I had not idea about cretin either.
Another that surprises a lot of people I was at school (when I correct them) is Flid (for thalidomide baby).

agree with you mamazoN(no surprise there)
I don't care if people live in some country that think terms like spaz are ok to use, they are offensive.
(and my dd is not reclaiming it and does not refer to her self a spaz)
there is a whole dictionary of words you can use, so why do people insist on the right to use such horrid terms??

Personally, I find any swearing pretty offensive too and I would never use any swear word of greater magnitude than "shit", and cannot bear the C word.

However, I am an adult, and this is an adult site and I choose to visit it knowing that their will be swearing.

Different people will find different things socially acceptable e.g. the young people I work with in Glasgow use the C word as a term for any person, or just as general punctuation. If we go down the line of censoring what people write where do you draw the line?

Whippet you are nit picking by the way

"However if a poster from the US (and how would you necessarily know?)uses 'spaz' for example, then there's no need to sanctimoniously jump down their throat about it.For them it isn't 'wrong' and any amount of jumping up and down, saying 'it's wrong because I say so' is irrelevant..."

Sorry whippet I totally disagree

If someone used spaz and didn't relaise that it was offensive, then I have no problem with them being educated

There's no justification for continuing to use language which hurts and offends once it has been pointed out to you - it's basic manners imo.

Whippet - if an american came on here and used the word spaz and didn't mean it offensively (a) I don't believe that the majority of MNers would be 'sanctionious' in pointing this out and (b) I think it would be useful to point out the differences in perception of words from US to UK.

Yes it is the world wide web but there are local differences. I wouldn't go on the Australian version of MN and say 'rack off' Joe Mangle stylee would I (oh, hang on perhaps I would).

Oh you know what I mean