I hear that this has been tried before but it didn’t really land because finding viable substitutes for particular terms can be difficult. I’m fascinated by language though and I wanted to take a shot at this myself.
Just a disclaimer that I’m not trying to drag anyone over using any of these terms and I’m not going to pretend that I’m some paragon of anti-ableism myself - I have work to do on this front, you probably do too and if we all work together we can make some positive change and establish better habits and a more supportive culture in our communities.
Here’s a list of words that are more socially acceptable in their ableism and some suggestions for alternatives:
Crazy, Stupid, Dumb, Moronic, Idiotic
[In the sense that something is incorrect or bad]
Silly, foolish, absurd, ridiculous, laughable, nonsense/nonsensical, illogical, incomprehensible, inscrutable, irrational, contradictory, hypocritical, self-defeating, naive, ill-conceived, inane, asinine, counterproductive, unbelievable,
Crazy, Mad
[In the sense of letting loose or being enthusiastic]
Going wild, getting stuck into something, in a frenzy, on a rampage, being engrossed, head over heels, obsessed.
Psychotic, Psychopath, Psycho
[In the sense that something is cruel]
Vicious, bloodthirsty, monstrous, horrific, sadistic, heartless, brutal, ruthless, horrendous, reprehensible, despicable, depraved.
Crippled
Hamstrung, moribund, incapacitated, impaired, ineffective/ineffectual, hog-tied (lol).
What are some other ableist words that are pretty commonplace even amongst the left that you’ve heard?
Are there terms that I have overlooked or any ones that you use yourself that you’d like to replace?
I come up against this wall often. Sometimes I do something myself that I would consider “stupid” and frankly the only thing I’ve found that feels like a good replacement is “ill-conceived” and “thoughtless”
. Depending on the scenario being whether I feel rather negative about it or positive about it would determine whether I lean more towards “stupid” over “thoughtless” though. Maybe that’s self-ableism but I sort of don’t think it is, without viewing my own actions and determining whether they were the application of good or bad ability-wise I would not improve at a given task, so some sort of analysis of ability at various things is a necessity in basic life.
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This is the thing. For me it’s “stupid” when I feel particularly negative about my action, like when it’s definitely my fault and I should feel bad about it. Whereas it’s “ill-conceived” or “thoughtless” when I’m neutral or positive about the action. Like with the blob-no-thoughts emoji. I wouldn’t necessarily try to change my action in the latter, whereas I would in the former.
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Interesting! I can see that interpretation, I’m genuinely struggling with an interpretation of this that doesn’t use something like that too. Taking an action that is intentionally and knowingly self harming for entertainment is very difficult to describe in any way other than self-deprecatingly.
Honestly I would love to find perfect replacements for things but it’s hard. Maybe we lack words or something. Perhaps borrowing words from other languages would help here.