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Put Down the Ducky if You Wanna Play the Saxophone (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} chibikaijuu) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} unfunny_fandom, |
The etymology of "cretin" is a little bit different (I'm going to quote from Wikipedia here):
"Cretinism is a condition of severely stunted physical and mental growth due to untreated congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones (congenital hypothyroidism) due to maternal nutritional deficiency of iodine.
[...]
The term cretin is a medical term which describes a person so affected with the condition, but, as with words such as spastic and lunatic, it can also have a vulgar connotation and can be used disparagingly. Cretin became a medical term in the 18th century, from an Alpine French dialect; it saw wide medical use in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then spread more widely in popular English as a markedly derogatory term for a person who behaves stupidly. Because of its pejorative connotations in popular speech, health-care workers have mostly abandoned cretin."
While not created specifically as a term used to classify people effectively as less-than-human, the use became so widespread that it is now probably the best-known meaning, and like the other mentioned medical terms like "spastic", now out-of-use because of the offensive connotations. (Weirdly, when I first encountered it in use, it meant more akin to "creepy and invasively socially inept" than "mentally deficient".) (Re: "spastic" - I am still trying to cut "spaz" out of my vocabulary, because "spastic" was never as popular a term for people with CP or other motor control issues where I was from than it was elsewhere, so I didn't make the connection for a long time - the use I was familiar with was more about mental, er, short-circuiting that may have been expressed in flaily movement, - basically, a very excitable ditz.)
"Cretinism is a condition of severely stunted physical and mental growth due to untreated congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones (congenital hypothyroidism) due to maternal nutritional deficiency of iodine.
[...]
The term cretin is a medical term which describes a person so affected with the condition, but, as with words such as spastic and lunatic, it can also have a vulgar connotation and can be used disparagingly. Cretin became a medical term in the 18th century, from an Alpine French dialect; it saw wide medical use in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then spread more widely in popular English as a markedly derogatory term for a person who behaves stupidly. Because of its pejorative connotations in popular speech, health-care workers have mostly abandoned cretin."
While not created specifically as a term used to classify people effectively as less-than-human, the use became so widespread that it is now probably the best-known meaning, and like the other mentioned medical terms like "spastic", now out-of-use because of the offensive connotations. (Weirdly, when I first encountered it in use, it meant more akin to "creepy and invasively socially inept" than "mentally deficient".) (Re: "spastic" - I am still trying to cut "spaz" out of my vocabulary, because "spastic" was never as popular a term for people with CP or other motor control issues where I was from than it was elsewhere, so I didn't make the connection for a long time - the use I was familiar with was more about mental, er, short-circuiting that may have been expressed in flaily movement, - basically, a very excitable ditz.)
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