Sunday, November 21, 2021

The Euphemism Treadmill

Moron: "Adopted by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-minded with a technical definition "adult with a mental age between 8 and 12;" used as an insult since 1922 and subsequently dropped from technical use."

They think the word is stigmatized; in reality the condition is stigmatized. The word picks up the connotations of the reality, not vice-versa. (You morons.) No matter what word you invent to describe being insufferable, they're still insufferable. Weakness remains a sin, and for homo hypocritus, weakness to lying is a particularly heinous sin.

This dynamic is one of the primary retardants of technical progress, incidentally. In this case, dabbling linguists are trying to alter an underlying reality by changing the pointer which points to it, yet it never occurs to them how inherently futile the endeavour is, no matter how many times Reality hints at this by making them fail. Likewise, technology is reduced to symbol to be manipulated, instead of a tool to be refined or reworked. Once the underlying reality is forgotten, it is remembered only by de novo mutants, it would seem.

1 comment:

Arqiduka said...

Oh they know all right, its just a flex on the rest of us.