When "He's So Gay" Meant "He's So Happy" (2)

please click here for part 1

Language in the English speaking world has been for the most part hijacked by narrow minded people who have cavalierly decided that certain words should not be used because they might offend people.

I will concede that certain definitions of a particular word are indeed hurtful, but expunging an entire word because of that one definition, is incredibly close minded at best and 1984ish at worst.

I am a child of the seventies and thus do not believe in the nonsense that is called "political correctness". I subscribe to the belief that a word is just that, nothing more and nothing less.

I grew up believing that there was no ulterior motive when a particular word was spoken. I knew what the normal aspect of a word was and I knew what the abnormal aspect of a word was, and I adjusted myself accordingly.

For example, let's take the word "gay". The definition of the word that I grew up with is the actual title of this post: gay meant happy. Gay did not mean "homosexual". In fact, the way I described someone who was homosexual, was calling them "homosexual". The now accepted definition of the word, which in my personal dictionary is #3, did not come into common usage until the mid 80's, when I was in my early 20's.

The accepted definition is such a common place occurrence and practice that when people try to use it the way it was originally intended, they get jumped on.

For the record, the Gay Nineties does not mean that people were homosexual in the 19th century, it means that people were happy and carefree.

Example #2: "retard". We all know that the abnormal aspect of the word is highly offensive and as such, most people don't use it like that. Because of that highly tuned sensitivity to that particular aspect of the word, trying to use it the way it was originally intended is often compared to hopping in a rocky minefield with one arm tied behind your back.

My early exposure to the word "retard" was confined to two distinctly unique worlds: music and medical.

In the musical world, the word "retard" meant "slow". So if you were playing a piece at a tempo of allegro (brisk, lively) and the word "retard" popped up, that meant you should slow down the tempo of the piece.

In the medical world, I was also exposed at an early age to the longer version of the word, which was coupled with the word "mental", and this was due to two main factors: my mother, who was a nurse during my childhood, and the group home, both private and state that were located just down the road from here I currently reside. The phrase "mental retardation" or "retarded" wasn't used in my family to describe someone who had Down's Syndrome. The phrase "Down's Syndrome" was used instead.

One other little fact: in the Psychiatric world, the word "retard" is often used as a medical diagnosis to describe someone of low intelligence (non-Down's Syndrome). This is something that I'd learned while entering old prisoner's records in a large database maintained by the CT State Library.

There are numerous other examples of other words that the language police are trying to expunge, simply because one particular definition, be it slang or otherwise, is either offensive to a normal person's sensibilities or shameful to a particular group's sensibilities. However, with this post, I wanted to concentrate on the two words that seem to bring out the most hysterical/overkill responses in all facets of society.

So, armed with your personal knowledge and memory, are there any words that you can think of that people have been trying to expunge from normal usage, simply because one particular definition of the word happens to be grossly offensive to normal people?