NY Governor Patterson Patterson signed an order that will change the name for “the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities”. The office will be known as The Office For People With Developmental Disabilities. He claims that the name change will respect people with disabilities, and give them a sense of pride, rather than shame, in the office.
Aside from the glaring fact that there are about 10,000 other more pressing issues that the NY state government should be paying attention to right now, I’m left to wonder… when did the word retard associate itself with negative connotations? It seems to me that this further perpetuates the politically correct, impression-less, impotent, euphemistically weakened lexicon that is the American language.
The late great philosopher George Carlin put it best in his ramblings on language:
“You can’t be afraid of words that speak the truth. I don’t like words that hide
the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms or
euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Because
Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble
facing the truth, so they invent a kind of a soft language to protect themselves
from it. And it gets worse with every generation. For some reason it just keeps
getting worse.I’ll give you an example of that. There’s a condition in combat. Most people know
about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s
absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has
either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war that condition was
called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock.
Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was 70 years ago. Then a whole
generation went by. And the second world war came along and the very same combat
condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to
say. Doesn’t seem to be as hard to say. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell
shock…battle fatigue.Then we had the war in Korea in 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time.
And the very same combat condition was called Operational Exhaustion. Hey we’re up
to 8 syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the
phrase now. It’s totally sterile now. Operational Exhaustion: sounds like
something that might happen to your car. Then of course came the war in Vietnam,
which has only been over for about 16 or 17 years. And thanks to the lies and
deceit surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition
was called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still 8 syllables, but we’ve added a
hyphen. And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder.I bet you, if we’d still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam
veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I bet you that!
Furthermore, since when did the name of any given organization, in and of itself, become the source of pride an individual can take in it? Shouldn’t pride be a direct and natural sum of intent + effort + result? For example, I would take immense pride being part of, or donating to, an organization entitled “The Organization to Help People Who Life Crapped On” that was daily hitting the streets and bringing, hope, food, clothing, and opportunity to people who feel they have none. On the other hand, I can’t take pride in an organization called “The Office For People With Developmental Disabilities” when the hubris heads of this office seem to feel pride is generated from having a politically correct name.
Honestly though, can I really expect anything different from a demagogic run government? No. No I can’t; and that’s sad.
July 19, 2010
Thoughts, Up To The Minute