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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 3rd, 2023

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  • That’s the euphemism treadmill I’m talking about. Idiot, moron, and imbecile were all terms used to describe conditions scientifically. They all became insults and were replaced by various degrees of “retardation,” which as you mentioned does come from root words meaning slow or delayed. When that similarly became an insult, special needs was coined. Then that became an insult and now the preferred term is intellectual disability. That one seems sterile enough but we’ll see.