The word "spastic"

It is an offensive term where I come from in the States. Perhaps it is a generational thing, I'm in my mid-40s.

Same here...(same age  and also considered offensive where I am from in the states.
Although I am from so many places in the states it is hard to say where it is that I knew it was offensive.

It is an offensive term where I come from in the States. Perhaps it is a generational thing, I'm in my mid-40s.

I was thinking this.  Maybe it's an age or regional thing in the US.  People around me would always use the term "spastic" to describe someone who was hyper or scatter-brained.  It was not used as an insult...a person might describe their friend as being spastic in a "I love you even with all your faults" kind of way.  It wasn't something I would have heard being shouted in a fight.

I never knew it was offensive here in the UK (or in the US) but I've never heard it used here either...and didn't hear it often in the US.  Good to know.

I don't think it is necessarily. I used to go the Spastic Charity Shop quite often in Wales. It has never been renamed and it's a lovely place, all for a good cause.

No doubt. But if you were at work in an office and you knocked over a mug of pens and pencils on your desk and said merrily "Oh! What a spastic (or "spaz") I am!" that would be a no-no.

It is an offensive term where I come from in the States. Perhaps it is a generational thing, I'm in my mid-40s.

I'm also in my mid-40s.

I've always heard it as an insult.

No doubt. But if you were at work in an office and you knocked over a mug of pens and pencils on your desk and said merrily "Oh! What a spastic (or "spaz") I am!" that would be a no-no.

Sure. But in some contexts, it is acceptable (the shop I mentioned, for instance), which is why it can't really be compared with the N-word.

'Spaz' wasn't a term used to describe a person with a disability where I'm from in the US either. Just a word we used to use to describe a brain fart or a really hyper mood. I didn't find out until until my DH told me what it meant here.

This is exactly how I would have described it as well where I'm from in the US as well.

'Spaz' wasn't a term used to describe a person with a disability where I'm from in the US either. Just a word we used to use to describe a brain fart or a really hyper mood. I didn't find out until until my DH told me what it meant here.

As a child in the US this is how I used the term.  When I started working my boss had a disability (not sure what, exactly).  Her arms and legs were not perfectly formed and she struggled to do things that I took for granted.  She scolded one of us girls in the shop for using the term and educated us. 

I see it as analagous to kids calling things "gay" without really understanding what the word means and where it comes from.  "Oh that is so gay!" I might have said when I was about nine years old when referring to an unfashionable outfit on one of my schoolmates (kids are cruel sometimes). 

I see it as analagous to kids calling things "gay" without really understanding what the word means and where it comes from.  "Oh that is so gay!" I might have said when I was about nine years old when referring to an unfashionable outfit on one of my schoolmates (kids are cruel sometimes). 

That's exactly how I see it. It is used by a lot of people in the US who don't think it has any negative connotations but once you're old enough you should understand the word's origins. I don't really think that's regional or age-specific.

As a child in the US this is how I used the term.  When I started working my boss had a disability (not sure what, exactly).  Her arms and legs were not perfectly formed and she struggled to do things that I took for granted.  She scolded one of us girls in the shop for using the term and educated us. 

I see it as analagous to kids calling things "gay" without really understanding what the word means and where it comes from.  "Oh that is so gay!" I might have said when I was about nine years old when referring to an unfashionable outfit on one of my schoolmates (kids are cruel sometimes). 

Yes!  This!  It was absolutely thrown around cavalierly when I was a kid, along with all manner of other really inappropriate insults that kids pick up and don't really understand.  But once you know, you know.   

I can't really compare an American using "spaz" to anyone using the word "idiot".  For generations, at least as a noun, it meant nothing other than a derogatory way to refer to the mentally handicapped.  I don't think we've referred to people in the US who had any disability as "spastic" for a long time, and I suspect those who associate it with CP or mental handicap might either have grown up in an area with British (or maybe Canadian?) influence or where people hung onto the old ways the word was used (if it was ever used much in the US to mean someone with CP or someone with mental retardation at all).  When/where I grew up, it meant clumsy and scattered.  When someone uses "idiot" as an insult, light or otherwise, however, it is will the full understanding of the meaning in their own dialect.

On a sort of related note of word origins, at one time "moron", "imbecile", and "idiot" were all medical terms to describe mentally handicapped people by degree of disability.  I remember being shocked finding this out by reading old medical books.  "Hysterical" means a wandering uterus because it was theorised during ancient times that women got upset because their womb would detach and move about their bodies causing them to lose control. I know there are more, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. 

I knew what the word spastic meant (the physical disability) when I was young, even if I heard it used to just mean someone who was very uncoordinated.

The same way that I knew that moron and idiot referred to people with real intellectual disabilities (having IQs of a certain leve), but heard the term used to refer to someone who had done something stupid.

The use of spastic to mean someone who is just hyperactive is new to me. You would have to be clumsy, not just hyper.

Sure. But in some contexts, it is acceptable (the shop I mentioned, for instance), which is why it can't really be compared with the N-word.

..."it can't really be compared with the N-word." I get the impression (wrongly, I hope) that you are trying to pick holes in what I asserted, or if not, to minimize and downplay the effect of what I meant. Of course the word "spastic" has multiple nuances of meaning. In a medical context it refers to a change in muscles affected by the medical condition spasticity, e.g. spastic diplegia, cerebral palsy, spastic colon etc. On the other hand, when used casually in everyday conversation, as an insult or term of abuse used to imply stupidity or physical ineptness, it is capable of arousing deep shock and offence, as is the word "n****r", especially in the US, where even the use of words that sound like it such as "niggardly" can be ill-advised.



 

..."it can't really be compared with the N-word." I get the impression (wrongly, I hope) that you are trying to pick holes in what I asserted, or if not, to minimize and downplay the effect of what I meant. Of course the word "spastic" has multiple nuances of meaning. In a medical context it refers to a change in muscles affected by the medical condition spasticity, e.g. spastic diplegia, cerebral palsy, spastic colon etc. On the other hand, when used casually in everyday conversation, as an insult or term of abuse used to imply stupidity or physical ineptness, it is capable of arousing deep shock and offence, as is the word "n****r", especially in the US, where even the use of words that sound like it such as "niggardly" can be ill-advised.

Not trying to pick holes at all and I am aware of the medical meaning of the word. All I'm saying is that you compared it with the N-word, with which I disagree. Others have said it's more like calling someone 'gay,' which I believe is much nearer the mark.

On a sort of related note of word origins, at one time "moron", "imbecile", and "idiot" were all medical terms to describe mentally handicapped people by degree of disability.

People with Down's Syndrome were at one time known as "Mongoloid idiots" and the term "Mongol" was common when I was a child (1950 & 60s), and those suffering from congenital hypothyroidism were called "cretins". Like the terms "spastic" and "cripple" these words have, happily, fallen out of everday use at least here in the UK.

you compared it with the N-word, with which I disagree. Others have said it's more like calling someone 'gay,' which I believe is much nearer the mark.

Tune that ear! In 2007, Lynne Murphy, a linguist at the University of Sussex, described the term as being "one of the most taboo insults to a British ear".