Challenge a word

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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If we look up the word Mongol a person from Mongolia 2 (Mongol) offensive a person with Down’s syndrome.

Now that is where we should start education people, with the help of the Alzheimer's Socierty Challenge contact Oxford English Dictionary have it change

Senile suffering a loss of mental faculties (2) offensive a people suffering with a disease or ? ( what
Other idea wording do you think is not so offensive )


They did with the word Mongol / Down syndrome why not with the word senile? as its so related to senile dementica ?
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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challengeing a word like senile in the Oxford English Dictionary need all your help

Challenge a word

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If we look up the word Mongol a person from Mongolia 2 (Mongol) offensive a person with Down’s syndrome.

Now that is where we should start education people, with the help of the Alzheimer's Socierty Challenge contact Oxford English Dictionary have it change

Senile suffering a loss of mental faculties (2) offensive a people suffering with a disease or ? ( what
Other idea wording do you think is not so offensive )


They did with the word Mongol / Down syndrome why not with the word senile? as its so related to senile dementica ?
 

Áine

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Feb 22, 2006
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sort of north east ish
I think it's interesting the way language changes, quite quickly sometimes, so words which were neutral or even positive can come to mean something totally different, or negative. The link here has a bit about the history of the word senile which might be interesting to you:

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=senile

And of course there can be further changes where people who have felt oppressed by a term come to claim it for themselves and use it again. It all gets really complicated when you get different groups of people using the term in it's different incarnations :eek:
 

Áine

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Feb 22, 2006
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sort of north east ish
oops

sorry maggie .......... maybe need my mods "L" plates on here. noticed this was posted twice and tried to merge the thread. not sure i did it quite right. not lost anything from it though :eek:
 

DickG

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Feb 26, 2006
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I must be in a sensitve mood tonight.

I do not find the word senile offensive. We are becoming too sensitve about words that have been used for years without anyone taking offence.

I am not a Senior Citizen, I am a citizen but not senior. I am in my old age and in receipt of a pension and am therefore an OAP.

Let us reserve our energy fighting worthwhile battles rather than perceived slights.

Dick
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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1. showing a decline or deterioration of physical strength or mental functioning, esp. short-term memory and alertness, as a result of old age or disease.
2. of or belonging to old age or aged persons; gerontological; geriatric.


Thats Just my point its not an old age disease is it ? what old age disease are they talking about ?

My point is wanting to change the word or am I not expressing it rightly .

PS

I was born in a generation that called people with Down’s syndrome Mongol , now years on that not heard of . My daughter who is 23 has never heard of the word Mongol for people with Down’s Syndrome so why not do it with the word Senile Dementia
 
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Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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Dick
Me you are older lol

I am talking about educating the next generation like they did with Down's S we got to start somewhere why not with the word ? like they did with Down’s syndrome.

Put that word in that search Mongolia 2 (Mongol) Aini left and you won't find it , I could not so my POINT do lets change do it With senile
 
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BeckyJan

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Nov 28, 2005
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Not fathoming this post completely but - the word Dementia gets us and always has. Why can't we use the word 'Brain Disease' - just like heart disease, kidney disease, etc etc. Beckyjan
 

Tender Face

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Mar 14, 2006
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DickG said:
We are becoming too sensitve about words that have been used for years without anyone taking offence.

So agree, Dick. Some years ago I was given the advice that there was a danger in sitting round a dinner table and asking politely for someone to 'Please, pass the salt' as there was bound to be another person at said table who objected to the word 'salt'......:(

That being said, I do struggle with the nuance between 'dementia' and 'demented'.... :confused:

K, x
 

noelphobic

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Feb 24, 2006
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Liverpool
my understanding is that the term 'senile dementia' would refer to someone who developed dementia in old age, whereas the term dementia could apply to someone who developed it at a younger age. As such I don't see any scope for taking offence or needing to change the language. Most words have their root in Latin (or so I believe) and I would hazard a guess that the word senile relates to old age in general.

I have a son who has diabetes and I don't really like him being referred to as 'diabetic', as that implies that the condition defines him. However, that is just a personal thing and probably totally irrelevant!

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/senilely
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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Lol I do get a bee in my bonnet. Just that the word senile dementia even the word dementia is so associated with old age , when they is so many young people who get it , so I thought take that word away from the dictionary . add something else .

Even dementca http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=dementia

1. Deterioration of intellectual faculties, such as memory, concentration, and judgment, resulting from an organic disease or a disorder of the brain. It is sometimes accompanied by emotional disturbance and personality changes.
2. Madness; insanity. See Synonyms at insanity.

(Number 2 insanity ?????? is that not Offences )

I was just saying as an example how they change the wording from Mongol to down’s syndrome , could they not take away number 2 , I did a bit of research on how they change Mongol it to downs syndrome it was done in 1970s , if the AS and dementia - science, really mean it when they want to not say senile dementia they are the one who have to push for it to not be seen like that take it away as being seen as insanity .

Or are they just Humouring us all
 

Áine

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Feb 22, 2006
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sort of north east ish
I can see what you mean maggie. Words can be such an obstacle to communication sometimes ;)

I think you've got a good point, but I don't think people just switch terminology like that. a) even in this thread we can see that not everyone agrees about what is offensive b) a lot of people see name changes as a kind of politically correct joke c) not everyone will learn the new terms d) the old terms will still be used in a derogatory way [sure they changed mongol to downs, but i still hear kids around me calling each other a "mong" if they do something stupid]

I wonder if what needs to happen (and this project will be completed some time after pigs learn to fly :rolleyes: ) is to tackle the underlying issues, so no one is treated disrespectfully or unfairly.
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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politically correct joke

Oh I know that politically correct how people can be so negtive over it , when really its just trying to move forward in a postive way .


People are draw more to the negative then the positive,
your think people would be in Solidarity to change the mind set of the medical perfection in the study of dementia in how the Public see dementia in the future

Seem you just live and learn even on the internet
 
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DeborahBlythe

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Dec 1, 2006
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Journalists

In another thread, (? " Avoiding Nursing Home costs") offence seemed to have been taken that the Telegraph article on Mr Pearce ( the chap who had managed to get a £50k refund) used the word 'victim' in the context of people with AD.
Someone put it down to the journalists being the problem. I'd say it is the disease which is the problem. I think that I favour almost any coverage of AD news/issues even if the words used are not strictly PC, if it will get a message across.
Let's be nice to journalists, 'cos we need them to speak for us.
 

Margarita

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Feb 17, 2006
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london
Good point

I keep wondering why this word Political Correct come in to the Conversation of dementia , so look up the word . I remeber my daughter
Studying Marxism when she done sociology .

http://www.academia.org/lectures/lind1.html


Second, the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness, like economic Marxism, has a single factor explanation of history. Economic Marxism says that all of history is determined by ownership of means of production. Cultural Marxism, or Political Correctness, says that all history is determined by power, by which groups defined in terms of race, sex, etc., have power over which other groups. Nothing else matters. All literature, indeed, is about that. Everything in the past is about that one thing.

The fact of the matter is that Political Correctness has a history, a history that is much longer than many people are aware of outside a small group of academics who have studied this. And the history goes back, as I said, to World War I, as do so many of the pathologies that are today bringing our society, and indeed our culture, down.


Why we are bring up PC in to Wanting to educate future generation , is in my view an oppression , because what are they
Implying what? A victim to what ? insanity. or to a disease of the brain , now that leave it to the imagination of the perception that the reader may have and where does the reader get those perception from , the way they have been educated in the past at school and society attitude as a whole .

noelphobic My daughter also does not want to be labelled epilepsy, but has to say I have epilepsy, to people at work or at Uni that does not mean that defines her as a person , Just that it may save her life .


Does it say in a dictionary that with epilepsy or
Diabetics
she is going to have insanity so that mean I have to expect that when I look up a word dementia the 2nd part says that my mother has insanity , but add AZ and all is OK

Just don't want to just say
Dementia , because people mind set is that its to do with old age and insanity
 
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