A Greater Tainan musician and her family said she was humiliated after receiving an award at an athletics event, which categorized her as a “mentally challenged participant.”
“I should be happy with the result I achieved, but I was left sobbing,” Shih Ching-hua (施靜華), a Chinese zither musician with the Tainan City Traditional Orchestra, said on Tuesday.
She sustained trauma and serious injuries in a traffic accident a few years ago, which left her with brain damage.
Shih participated at a city-sponsored sports event for physically and mentally challenged people at which she placed fifth in a competition.
The celebrations turned sour when she received the certificate, which described her as being fifth in the “mentally challenged females, over the age of 16” category.
The certificate used the term zhi zhang (智障), which means people with mental disabilities, but is also a common insult for such people.
“The wording may be valid, but couldn’t the organizers have written something more positive? Did they have to use the term zhi zhang to describe the individuals in the competition?” Shih’s husband asked.
It’s PC in the sense that it’s been a generally used term. It directly translates as something like “intelligence handicapped” which basically means “stupid” when you come down to it, hence its use as an insult. They should use a better term in this context, and it seems like they will in the future.
I suppose the closest English translation would be something like ‘retard[ed]’, but it’s hard to make a comparison - Mandarin is a bit weird, I’ve noticed some words are simultanously rather crude and also in common use. But presumably if the girl was offended, then it was offensive.
Because they’re 'tarded?
Seems to me there was no need to mention the nature of participants’ disability on the certificates at all.
I guess her point is why put it on the certificate? ‘Good at music for a brain damaged female (over 16)’ isn’t something you want to frame and put on the wall. Whenever she looks at it, she’ll think ‘car crash’, not ‘remember that awesome concert?’
Mental retardation was considered an acceptable medical term when it was used in the 1950s, but it eventually fell out of favor when people determined use of the word retarded to be offensive. The story with 智障 is basically the same.
They should have used a more neutral term like 身心障礙者 (lit: those with mental or physical obstacles)
The same is true of other words such as “idiot”. “Mentally disabled” came under fire twenty or so years ago too, and they substituted “mentally challenged”, which the activists are now decrying too. The simple reality is that there is never going to be a term for brain-damaged or defective people that such people and their activist friends will ever be happy with in the long term, because no matter how neutral the term is, it will eventually be associated with the condition, which is the very thing that they are trying not to be labeled with.
Sort of like “progressives”, when it comes right down to it.
Actually I think it’s the precise opposite. A word like retarded which describes a condition becomes offensive when people start slinging it around as an insult to those who are unrelated to the condition. “Retard” is offensive because people intentionally use it as an insult. Times change, certain words become common, and many people use them without thinking about what they mean or how it can hurt people.
Oh, that’s nice. ‘Defective people’ should be the new term applied.
Yes, and we know the final solution to this problem. Defectives and progressives can be eliminated at the same time, thus increasing the efficiency of we, the people struggling to preserve the status quo. Defectives must be eliminated along with those who oppose the unprogressive.
Why so much support for this defective musician, and so little support for your antidisestablishmentarianism?
Actually I think it’s the precise opposite. A word like retarded which describes a condition becomes offensive when people start slinging it around as an insult to those who are unrelated to the condition. “Retard” is offensive because people intentionally use it as an insult. Times change, certain words become common, and many people use them without thinking about what they mean or how it can hurt people.[/quote]
So? You think that if the activists insist on starting to calling them “adorable cuddlekids”, that in six months that won’t be getting used in the exact same way?
Whatever term is used, whatever made-up word or phrase you come up with, if it is being used to describe “that condition”, then it will develop the negative associations.
Rowland nailed it; “euphemism treadmill” is the linguistic phenomenon.
Once acceptable terms become used as insults, and then get replaced my new terms. Soon these new terms become insults and get replaced again. Along the way, there are people who are used to using an older term who are unaware that it has become offensive.
“Moron” and “imbecile” were once neutral, clinical terms.
That is the phenomenon, yes, but it doesn’t address varmint’s implied argument that these people are being babies and complaining about non-issues. If you ended up brain damaged but still functional and won an award as “best retard,” you’d be pretty miffed over it I’m sure.
Well, what do you want? “Mentally disabled” got shot down after a couple of years because “how dare you label my special snowflake disabled!” “Mentally challenged” got shot down after a couple of years too because the same people started bitching.
Tell you what, you pick the phrase. I guarantee you that within five years the exact same complaints will surface.
Well, what do you want? “Mentally disabled” got shot down after a couple of years because “how dare you label my special snowflake disabled!” “Mentally challenged” got shot down after a couple of years too because the same people started bitching.
Tell you what, you pick the phrase. I guarantee you that within five years the exact same complaints will surface.[/quote]
That’s right. And you go with the flow. Language and society are constantly in motion, and as a part of society, you have to play the rules, not make them. Otherwise you can walk around central LA throwing out words like negro and Oriental – both of which used to be commonly used – and see where that gets you.
