disablities: social, learning ect.

[Mayhem]

Originally Posted by Davetello

I still find it strange that the 'c' word is more offensive over there than 'spaz'. Why on earth should women find that word offensive? It's just a word for their genitals, like the 'p' word.

I guess you don't play online gaming much, otherwise you'd be bombarded with shouts of "gaaaaaaay" every twenty seconds or so...

"Spaz", in my experience, only appears to cause an outrage in this country. I am unaware, despite having many friends in many other countries around the world, of them finding the word offensive. Witness what happened when Tiger Woods used the term during an interview on British TV to describe how played in one particular round. A Nintendo videogame (I think it was one of the Mario Party series) got pulled because of a single instance of using the word!

"Spaz" derived from the word "spastic" as said, and the use of the term caused The Spastic Society to change its name because of the negative connotations associated with it, probably sparked by us 80s kids bandying the term in the playgrounds in response to Joey Deacon on Blue Peter. So the charity changed its name to Scope. You know what happened? Kids started calling each other "scopers" in the playground instead. My brother and I occasionally josh with his girlfriend over her name, because she is S.Cope (seriously).

You can't escape human behaviour. I'm not condoning it, but I suspect you'd be trying to fight a losing battle. And Americans I've known for a long time just don't find the word offensive, and don't use the word as an active aggressive cuss. Which similar terms such as the shortening of Pakistani, or the C word, are also in this bracket, along with the usual J word and N word.

Although oddly enough I get more cusses regarding drinking tea, eating crumpets and reading Harry Potter when online