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A euphemism treadmill, in fact

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

Comic Doug Stanhope did a bit about the euphemism treadmill. For example, before "retarded" was a medical term doctors used the terms "moron" and "imbecile" which people co-opted to call someone that does something incredibly stupid. In turn, "retarded" ended up co-opted as well because it stuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy_a2C7VSWg

What's he saying though? That connotations of words change over time? Everyone should know that. 'Retarded' used to be a medical term, now it's a 4chan term, so it needs canning.

He's arguing that any term that replaces a previous one due to its offensiveness and insensitivity will most likely become the new offensive term.

>'Retarded' used to be a medical term, now it's a 4chan term, so it needs canning.

That's exactly Doug's point. Soon enough terms like "neurodivergent" might become offensive when it's co-opted by people in general, e.g., "you're such a neurodivergent", "you're a neury", etc

The George Carlin bit on shellshocked comes to mind.

For those curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0

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