The Null Device

Language and evolution: The word "retarded", for long a clinical term to describe IQs below 70, is now considered offensive, having gone the way of other clinical terms such as "moronic" and "feeble-minded".
Of course, it's a step up from "moron," "imbecile," or "idiot," which were actually codified as appropriate technical terms in 1910 by the AAMR, then known as the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiots and Feeble-Minded Persons. (Morons were the brightest, followed by idiots and imbeciles.) The AAMR replaced those terms with "mild," "moderate," and "severe" retardation in 1959, but the old words did not go quietly: Davidson recalls attending a guest lecture in graduate school in the 1970s where the speaker, an esteemed professor in the field, discoursed on "low-grade imbeciles."

(via Plastic; insert your own George W. Bush references here)

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