If the R-word is bad, what about the P-word, et al.?

It begins to seem that words become bad under two circumstances. First, they have to have fairly recent currency. Second, they need a lobby.

OK, I can see why people object to "retard," the noun. It was a bit of a surprise when Rahm Emmanuel used it, because I've long thought of that usage as New England idiom, like "wicked." What I don't see, exactly, is the selectivity of such campaigns. One can only explain it by appreciating the role interest groups play in this.

Regular readers may be aware that there are some "crazee" people around this site. They may know that we aren't crazy in the casual sense: we have lived with, learned to cope with, and triumphed over, psychiatric illness. It is not very helpful when people use words like "paranoid," "psycho," "schizoid," "neurotic," and a good number of others. That usage is also casual (outside the clinic) and usually the hurt is just as unintentional. But there's something about psychiatry that induces people to practice without a licence. Using such words may be a passive stigmatisation. People who would never think of performing an appendectomy think nothing of slapping a psychiatric diagnosis on those whose behaviour may be, well, different. That's a very active stigmatisation.

That sort of thing goes on with mentally challenged people as well, I know, but they and their advocates should be grateful that they only have one word to fight. I'll sign up for your campaign, but I hope you sign up for mine. Just leave me one word to describe the people who object to having their already limited vocabularies limited further: fools.