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[A Pretty Panda]

I always thought the word dwarf sounds way worse.

 

[badcrumble]

Do you think someone is a dick if they say midget?

As someone who is 5'10", I don't think it's up to me to decide.

 

[cubanb]

Half-Pint is another one. Is short round one or was that specific to the kid in the temple of doom?

 

[blame space]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Payu65yWM8

 

[Darknight]

It's bad because it is an anagram of the n word.

I was asking an honest question and it has nothing to do with the midget word. I don't know if "red head" is an offensive term.

 

[PackerinMN]

My high school's team name was Fennimore Midgets in the 1940s and 50s. The name was later changed to Fennimore Golden Eagles in the 60s. Quite progressive for their time.

I thought midget was more of a classical term rather than a slur.

 

[Vermillion]

Can we stop with the blonde jokes guys? I was born this way and it doesn't make me any less smart. Let's all be PC here.

1) For males, it's spelled "blond"
2) According to the Simpsons, blond guys aren't stupid, they're evil

 

[cubanb]

 

[IrrelevantNotch]

I only use the word midget when I'm singing along to the radio

 

[bengraven]

 

[suzu]

Well, the only times I've ever heard anyone use midget was in a mean or degrading way to someone.

 

[Tesseract]

Warwick Speaks

i lost it when he sat on his lap. good googly gravy, this is amazing.

 

[kehs]

Only in short sentences.

 

[way more]

If you saw Peter Dinklage at a party would you call him a midget?

If no, maybe you should treat everyone like that.

 

[captmorgan]

If you saw Peter Dinklage at a party would you call him a midget?


If no, maybe you should treat everyone like that.

If yes, can we treat everyone like that?

 

[way more]

If yes, can we treat everyone like that?

No, it just means you are a dick.

 

[cubanb]

If you saw Peter Dinklage at a party would you call him a midget?

If no, maybe you should treat everyone like that.

Would you call a fat person fat when you meet them at party? Of course not, but they are still fat.

 

[Wiseblade]

No, it just means you are a dick.

First you need to explain why "Midget" is worse than "Dwarf" or "Little Person".

 

[Switters]

Can I ask something here, if I may? Well is it OK to call guys/girls with orange/red hair...a "red head" or is that offensive? I know ginger is kinda a slur for them. Just wondering.

No, that's fine. "red head" is a descriptor, like black or white, it denotes the color of one's hair.

While ginger, on the other hand, is a term used to imply that someone with red hair is somehow less desirable, at worst someone who is deserving of loathing and mockery.
At least that's how it's been used in the parlance of our times. Before South Park we had to contend with just being the target of local abuse, though now it seems the meme has reached a global scale.

I speak from a man's point of view so I can't speak for the women, though they are frequently more favored and sought after than red haired men.

But since I'm an adult and names don't hurt me, I'm more worried about the kids with red hair who grow up being told they don't have souls and kicked without provocation by ignorant peers.

(yes there are no such thing as souls, but the context is meant to devalue said red heads sense of worth and place in the social hierarchy)

 

[Ratrat]

First you need to explain why "Midget" is worse than "Dwarf" or "Little Person".

First page.

 

[MuggerMD]

Half man! Half man!!

 

[echoshifting]

First you need to explain why "Midget" is worse than "Dwarf" or "Little Person".

The fact that dwarfs prefer you do not use midget, and this preference has historical merit should be enough for anyone, I think.

Later most people of short stature considered the word to be offensive because it was the descriptive term applied to P. T. Barnum's dwarfs used for public amusement during the freak show era. It is also not considered accurate as it is not a medical term or diagnosis, though it is sometimes used as a slang term to describe those who are particularly short, whether or not they have dwarfism.

I think "little person" is degrading, personally, but if a dwarf asked me to call them that I would do so without objection.

 

[way more]

First you need to explain why "Midget" is worse than "Dwarf" or "Little Person".

To Google we go!

. It was coined by PT Barnum in the mid 1800's to describe members of the dwarf community who were the most socially acceptable, i.e., "well proportioned" little people who could entertain on the front stage for polite society. The rest of the dwarf community, those of us whose bodies are shaped differently enough to look more than just "really short," were relegated to the back stage or freak shows.

In fact, even into the 1950's, it was still considered more socially acceptable to be a midget than to be any other kind of dwarf! I remember hearing parents say "if my child has to be small, then thank god she's a midget, and not a dwarf." And little people themselves would fight over who could call themselves midget and who couldn't. Billy Barty, our organization’s founder, was raised in this era, and grew up claiming to be a midget, even though his "wind swept" legs and "stubby" fingers would not meet the standards of the more conservative midgets.

Second, PT Barnum was so good at showmanship that the term midget became common vernacular, and used for almost anything smaller than usual. As a result, It became the word that most people learned and used. Which meant that when people wanted to call attention to short stature and body differentness, midget was the first word to come to mind. Those of us raised in this country from the fifties and after came to associate "midget" only as a bad and hurtful word.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050501/COMMENTARY/50429001

But if you are ok with referring to people as circus side shows don't let me get in your way.

 

[big_z]

everything is offensive these days, people need to grow up.

 

[echoshifting]

everything is offensive these days, people need to grow up.

Yeah that happens in societies that start demanding tolerance. Words are excised from the accepted cultural lexicon.

 

[Ratrat]

everything is offensive these days, people need to grow up.

...haw haw

Anyway, I first heard about this from Roger Eberts website.
was an interesting read.

 

[Levyne]

Little People sounds like you think of them as less like people or more like children.

Dwarf seems to distance them even further from human..like they don't belong or should be relegated to middle earth.

I for the longest time though midget was appropriate but I guess it's no good as well.

Just best to not call them anything other than their names.

 

[echoshifting]

Dwarf seems to distance them even further from human..like they don't belong or should be relegated to middle earth.

I don't think you will ever get in trouble for calling a dwarf a dwarf. "Dwarfism" is the word used to describe these conditions.

If you're worried about the "fantasy creature" connotation, consider:

a) wealthy warrior (dwarf)
or
b) sideshow freak (midget)

 

[Levyne]

I don't think you will ever get in trouble for calling a dwarf a dwarf. "Dwarfism" is the word used to describe these conditions.

Doesn't mean it can't eventually (or already) be seen as a bad choice of label like some others. I wouldn't know if it is at all is, though..not often (ever) in a situation to use it.

 

[Orayn]

I align myself with the pro-PC crowd on the whole "PC IS DESTROYING THE WORLD!!11" business.

If you saw Peter Dinklage at a party would you call him a midget?

If no, maybe you should treat everyone like that.

Aloud, I would refer to him as Mr. Dinklage. Mentally, I'd be saying "my liege" and getting ready to pledge my service to him at a moment's notice.

 

[Wiseblade]

I don't think you will ever get in trouble for calling a dwarf a dwarf. "Dwarfism" is the word used to describe these conditions.

If you're worried about the "fantasy creature" connotation, consider:

a) wealthy warrior (dwarf)
or
b) sideshow freak (midget)

"wealthy warrior"? Please. You say the word "dwarf" to people, the first thing they think of is "seven". As in the "Hi ho hi ho, it's off to work we go", "how do I wash hands?" kind. Either that, or ginger, bearded, Scottish "And my axe!" types. Both of which are worst than midget.


Personally, I'd ask. And then question anyone who asked to be called a dwarf.

 

[way more]

Personally, I'd ask. And then question anyone who asked to be called a dwarf.

Well what would they know? They only lived their entire life with the condition and are infinitely more educated about it than you.

 

[Wiseblade]

Well what would they know? They only lived their entire life with the condition and are infinitely more educated about it than you.

I said "ask", not "tell them how wrong they are".

 

[cwmartin]

What do you mean by "we"? Like all you tall motherfuckers?

 

[ido]

Bruce Bruce calls them "Little Bitty Boy Man" ...

lol

 

[Trurl]

To Google we go!



http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050501/COMMENTARY/50429001

But if you are ok with referring to people as circus side shows don't let me get in your way.

Thanks for fighting the good fight. One sad thing about this subject is that the very notion that it should be taken as a serious consideration is often seen as a joke.

 

[dream]

This type of over-sensitive nonsense always makes me think of Nancy Mairs' essay "On Being a Cripple:"

First, the matter of semantics. I am a cripple. I choose this word to name me. I choose
from among several possibilities, the most common of which are "handicapped" and
"disabled." I made the choice a number of years ago, without thinking, unaware of my
motives for doing so. Even now, I'm not sure what those motives are, but I recognize that
they are complex and not entirely flattering. People--crippled or not--wince at the word
"cripple," as they do not at "handicapped" or "disabled." Perhaps I want them to wince. I
want them to see me as a tough customer, one to whom the fates /gods /viruses have not
been kind, but who can face the brutal truth of her existence squarely. As a cripple, I
swagger.

But, to be fair to myself, a certain amount of honesty underlies my choice. "Cripple"
seems to me a clean word, straightforward and precise. It has an honorable history,
having made its first appearance in the Lindisfarne Gospel in the tenth century. As a lover
of words, I like the accuracy with which it describes my condition: I have lost the full use
of my limbs. "Disabled," by contrast, suggests any incapacity, physical or mental. And I
certainly don't like "handicapped," which implies that I have deliberately been put at a
disadvantage, by whom I can't imagine (my God is not a Handicapper General), in order
to equalize chances in the great race of life. These words seem to me to be moving away
from my condition, to be widening the gap between word and reality. Most remote is the
recently coined euphemism "differently abled," which partakes of the same semantic
hopefulness that transformed countries from "undeveloped" to "underdeveloped," then to
"less developed," and finally to "developing" nations. People have continued to starve in
those countries during the shift. Some realities do not obey the dictates of language.

Mine is one of them. Whatever you call me, I remain crippled. But I don't care what you
call me, so long as it isn't "differently abled," which strikes me as pure verbal garbage
designed, by its ability to describe anyone, to describe no one. I subscribe to George
Orwell's thesis that "the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have
foolish thoughts." And I refuse to participate in the degeneration of the language to the
extent that I deny that I have lost anything in the course of this calamitous disease; I
refuse to pretend that the only differences between you and me are the various ordinary
ones that distinguish any one person from another. But call me "disabled" or
"handicapped" if you like. I have long since grown accustomed to them; and if they are
vague, at least they hint at the truth. Moreover, I use them myself. Society is no readier to
accept crippledness than to accept death, war, sex, sweat, or wrinkles. I would never refer
to another person as a cripple. It is the word I use to name only myself.

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

I don't like the term Handicapable for people with a disabilities or impairments.

 

[Hot Coldman]

Only to a midget's face

 

[way more]

Jigaboo sounds so nice, why would anyone not want to be called it?

 

[Log4Girlz]

A lot of people in Miami used to call them Nenanos.

 

[G-Fex]

I've never met a little person in real life, I'm sure I wouldn't call them a little person or a midget.

That's like saying "Hey black man" and "Hey White guy" to somebody out in the street or a store.

 

[Log4Girlz]

One time I saw this little person, not a dwarf, looks totally normal except being incredibly small (I'm not sure what the other common condition is other than dwarfism).

She was Latina.

Massive ass, nice rack and a nice face. I would have done her.

 

[way more]

One time I saw this little person, not a dwarf, looks totally normal except being incredibly small (I'm not sure what the other common condition is other than dwarfism).

She was Latina.

Massive ass, nice rack and a nice face. I would have done her.

Haha. If only we just saw all people as "fuckable" or not. Maybe our children will be able to objectify each other without thinking of race, size, or creed.

 

[RangersFan]

"i'm club fucking footed you ass wipe"

 

[Count Dookkake]

Only to a midget's face

You wouldn't stoop so low.

 

[blame space]

.

 

[G-Fex]

I agree with that aboved statement and I'd like to dedicate it to the midget Blame speaks of requesting to speak.

 

[Slavik81]

The alternative naming might be more palatable if "little people" were not such a terribly vague term. I'd probably use that to describe anyone under 5 feet.

Though, seeing that Wikipedia mentions <4'10" is sometimes used as the definition of dwarfism, that's probably not bad.

Ok, little people it is.

 

[blame space]

.