I choose to speak out when I hear people misusing epithets such as psycho and nutter. This doesn’t make me a po-faced party pooper – language shapes attitudesIt happens all the time. If not every day then at the very least several times a week. Someone describes someone else as a “nutter” or a situation as “mental”,and, listening, or I am faced with a choice: to speak or not to speak.
It happens in the media too. And not just in tabloid headlines approximately “schizos”,“psychos” and so forth. In arts discussions on BBC Radio 4, I regularly hear the word “psychotic” used as a shorthand for missing in conscience, and “schizophrenic”,when what is meant is in two minds.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com