And I’d agree, but since I heard a special ed teacher say it nearly ten years after the song’s release… you know. Usage changes can take a while to truly sink in.
(The same person was still using “confined to a wheelchair” about ten years after that.)
I’m a reasonably devolved individual - All the albums, lots of boot legs, seen a few concerts -
but I think we can all safely say that MUCH of the spud’s catalog can not be played in mixed company today.
Still the set list for Hardcore Live in 2014 still featured Baby Talkin’ Bitches, Bamboo Bimbo, and I Been Refused with only Refused getting some noticeable editing.
Where did that happen?
My younger sister with Down syndrome was born in 1972, and we never once heard the term “mongoloid” applied to her or her classmates or any of their contemporaries with the condition… In fact I only ever heard that word disparaged as an offensive historical term, sort of like what happened to the term “Siamese twins,” which lingered considerably longer.
Southwestern Ontario. It’s a weird region because there’s very progressive people in it… who then use words like that, or hold very conservative ideas in certain areas.
ETA: My favourite example: if a man and a woman are about to cross paths in a public place and bump into each other, the woman must yield right of way, no matter what. Otherwise she is being “rude”. It’s an unspoken rule that took me a long time to learn – in TO it’s more of a negotiation where each person avoids the other (probably muttering a Canadian “sorry”).
The person I’m referring to considers themselves a socialist and does correct other people on using old, now-unaccepted terms. But like I said, things update unevenly.
Y’all think PSY belongs in this thread since he tends to go full Korean stereotype? (Granted, most of it would be lost on you if you didn’t know the stereotypes to begin with. Which leads me to consider manga artists like Tezuka who based their drawings of black people on old racist Disney cartoons not knowing they were offensive until later in life.)
Or does he get the “N-Word” free pass rappers have?
Non-patronising pro-disabled songs are sadly few and far between.
The only one I can think of is Spasticus Autisticus by Ian Dury and the Blockheads (Ian had disabilities related to polio)
I have heard the term “mongoloid” into the 80s. My grandparents used it, but they were not native English speakers.
I was unaware “Siamese twins” was offensive, just that it was not a proper thing to say.
Well, I suppose since the term was used because of the fame of Chang and Eng Bunker, who were born in Siam (present day Thailand), and I imagine conjoined twins aren’t necessarily any more common there than they are anywhere else, the term both otherizes conjoined twins (as being “exotic” like the people of far-off Siam) and twins from Thailand (as if being a twin from there means you’re conjoined), so both woefully inaccurate and kinda racist.
As for “mongoloid,” that term would have earned the user some serious side-eye or an educational lecture in the circles in which I grew up.
ETA: I just remembered that there’s a term related to Siamese twins that’s used in automotive engine design. “Siamesed” cylinder walls have no water/coolant passages drilled between them. It affords greater stability to the engine block in high-performance use cases, but the term is used because the metal cylinder walls are “conjoined” rather than separated by the water jacket.
Also used for a “Y” connection for a fire department water supply.
Which leads me to wonder: what do the posters in this thread think of the use of “male/female” to describe plugs and sockets or threaded connectors? Personally, it doesn’t bother me, but I’m not in the class that it might bother. I’m actually not aware of a suitable alternative term that is unambiguous to anyone not familiar with the jargon of various trades and professions. (I’ve heard laypersons refer to wall outlets and both ends of an extension cord as “plugs”, so there’s a need. 
)
Incidentally, Anderson Powerpole connectors are described as “genderless”, because all connectors are physically the same, and any connector will fit any other.
It’s a clear metaphor, and it’s describing biology, not identity. The only people I know who get freaked or about it are conservative about sex.
Besides, a lot of female connectors have extending bits, and a lot of male connectors have recessed bits.
Which came about as a more polite way of saying “crippled”. Then we got “disabled” as a better, more general term, and then “differently-abled”, which I think is a well-meaning step too far. To me it implies that such people have some sort of extra ability that offsets any restrictions they may have, and that therefore we needn’t make so many accommodations for them.
That hasn’t been my experience, but then I’m someone who tends to get out of everyone’s way. To offer contrasting anecdata, I regularly encounter women with a don’t-give-a-fuck expression who march directly down the center of the sidewalk, forcing me to the edge, or right off onto the grass if there are two of them.
OTOH, twice in the past month or so I have done the right-left-right dance with women approaching me. Everyone smiled and went on their way.
Just come to a complete stop; make ‘em walk around you.
I’m in the habit of getting out of everyone else’s way. I live in a neighborhood with a large African American population, and the last thing I wanna be is the white guy who expects everyone (especially women and Black folks) to step aside for the likes of me. My default is to assume that the oncoming pedestrian’s business is more urgent than my own, because that’s probably the case more often than not when I’m on foot. When I do need to get through the crowd, I just apply a little extra in the “beg your pardon” department, and dance around the oncomers a bit more energetically. I figure it’s up to me to negotiate my path as well as I can, and I have no business hogging the sidewalk like it belongs to me.
I feel that if our baseline assumption is that everyone out there is as important as we are, and that those who have historically been treated as lesser than we are should be treated as more important than we are, then the world would be a merrier place.
And I’ll still get to 7-Eleven before closing time. 
Trivia: spacecraft docking ports also traditionally use male/female terminology.
When the Russian and US sections joined to make the ISS, they couldn’t agree on which country got to be which gender. So they invented a new, gender-neutral type of docking just to avoid the issue.
People are daft.
But are you in Southwestern Ontario, specifically London? I know it doesn’t work that way in other places.
I agree.
The only term I find more cringeworthy than differently abled is handicapable. Gag.
IME, the smaller person usually winds up giving way to the larger person, regardless of gender.
No, Toronto. I lived in London years ago, too long ago to remember. I agree there are rude sidewalk hogs everywhere, but I don’t see it as a rule that women must defer to men (not denying your experience).
A few years ago we went to Paris (France, not Ontario). You do not get in the way of a Parisienne walking to work in the morning.They’ll run you down. I think the rule is that the more elegantly-dressed party has the right of way, which means I should probably just walk in the gutter at all times. 
I’m told that works with a silverback gorilla. I’m not so sure about an athletic young woman with a jogging stroller.
What do you think of She’s Lost Control by Joy Division? It’s about his own experiences as an epileptic…?
