Just learned there was year old discourse about if “spaz” is a slur bc Lizzo said it
Let’s propose a trade. Maybe the UK is willing to allow Americans to say “spaz” but in exchange Americans must allow Brits to casually say either “cunt” or “faggot” (only have to choose one)?
i will let you say not only 'spaz' but the whole range of spasticity based slurs, but you must permit 'retarded'.
Is spasticity like, significant to the British, like an occupational hazard of some big local industry or an effect of exposure to dark satanic mill residue or WWI poison gas or something? I can't remember the last time it even came up over here.
do not research Joey Deacon
Institutionalized with cerebral palsy, was assumed to be mentally "subnormal" but through much effort with other institutional patients wrote and published a pamphlet-length book which funded their independent lives, appeared on a prominent children's show as an inspirational story but became an object of nationwide schoolboy mockery, with "spaz" taking on much the role "retard" did in American youth culture.
Okay, I guess that works. One thing I will say is the Covid-brain experience made me realize how much of the stereotype of the rural moron, loping along with hips and belly forward, shoulders back, and arms hanging down and swinging freely with the wrists loose is really a stereotype of someone with significant nerve or brain issues.
A distinction though is with American schoolboy “retard” – like, there were kids with Down Syndrome around that the term was literally invoking, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, first passed in 1975 (as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act), required students be educated in the “least restrictive environment”, and reasonably functional Down kids were taught (often in dedicated classes, with varying degrees of “mainstreaming” exposure to the general student body and regular school structures). Whereas the thing about Joey Deacon was that people with conditions like his were withdrawn from society, not exposed to the general public.