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10 comments from readers

MarinaHyde
04 September 2009 at 10:55

What utter nonsense. I hate to contradict your unimpeachable lodestars on this - "the Urban Dictionary" and a "Life in Italy" website, somewhat hilariously - but the word cretin has passed from reference to medical condition to denote an idiot. As indeed has "idiot" itself, along with moron, and imbecile, which were originally used to note degrees of mental handicap - more recently, even, than the word cretinism was coined. We call this "semantic change", as language is constantly evolving. I very much doubt that a doctor treating someone with cretinism today would refer to them as "a cretin", just as they would be unlikely to call someone with Downs Syndrome a "halfwit" - the original medical designation for it, would you believe. But they might very well use those words in another context to denote someone behaving ... well, a little moronically, if you'll pardon the hate speech.

MarinaHyde
04 September 2009 at 11:10

and contrary to the manner in which you represented it in your piece, the Concise Oxford Dictionary's PRIMARY DEFINITION of the word is "a stupid person". the secondary definition which you quote is prefaced with the words "Medicine, dated".

CLNFRQHR
04 September 2009 at 11:34

Well, that was pretty picky. I'm glad to see that Marina has stood up for herself (and correctly so).

JennyinOz
04 September 2009 at 14:18

What is a "padeophile" heckle?

Would many people these days really object to the use of words such as cretin, idiot and moron as a casual insult? Sarkozy, as a political leader, probably shouldn't have called someone a cretin in public, but most of us, I'm sure, use such terms without even thinking of their past medical meanings. Language changes over time, and many previously taboo words are now commonly used. Marina Hyde's use of the word "cretin" got her message across, and was probably more acceptable in print than calling the chanters "f***wits", for example!

Attrition47
04 September 2009 at 14:44

"and contrary to the manner in which you represented it in your piece, the Concise Oxford Dictionary's PRIMARY DEFINITION of the word is "a stupid person". the secondary definition which you quote is prefaced with the words "Medicine, dated".

There is an equally repellent word to describe 'a black person'. Learn some manners you cnut ('an unpleasant person').

Yo Zushi
04 September 2009 at 16:18

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers found in a survey last year that the most common term of abuse in British schools is “gay”. Slang lexicographer Tony Thorne interviewed “scores of school kids” about their usage of the word and was told emphatically that “it has nothing to do with hostility to homosexuals” -- in fact, “it is nearly always used in contexts where sexual orientation and sexuality are completely irrelevant.”

I get what you mean about language constantly evolving, but when you call foul-mouthed football fans “cretins”, how different is it to when a student, say, calls a lousy sandwich “gay”? Nobody's saying that the sandwich is homosexual, or making a literal comparison between bad sandwiches and gay people. But there's an undeniable (and offensive) feedback of meaning. It draws from, and thereby reinforces, the assumption that being “gay” is a bad thing. The same goes for the use of “cretin”, in my opinion. I just don't think it was a good choice of words!

SpeckledJim
04 September 2009 at 17:25

I think Marina - whatever your arguments are around "semantic change" - there are relatives of children suffering from this hideous syndrome that would find what you said massively offensive. Whatever your hidebound view on the use of this term might project, it is EXACTLY the same as calling people whose behaviour you find offensive "spastics".

"Semantic shift"? That is a laughably weak manoeuvre to wriggle out of this.

Schizo Stroller
04 September 2009 at 20:38

Let's hope the paedophile heckle doesn't suffer from 'semantic change' too. People might go around calling people nonces because they're a bit wierd.

Oh wait! Damn, seems to have happened.

i'm waiting for a student to call their sandwich a bit paedo and claim it has no relevance to child molestation.

Semantic change does happen, sometimes it's good, sometimes not. However underlying it is an epistemic consciousness. The argument that it is benign is not itself benign.

MarinaHyde
05 September 2009 at 18:56

I'm sorry, but before you cosset yourself in some comfy debate about "gay sandwiches", I'm really goimg to keep on having to ask you to stick to your own (presumably intentional) terms of reference.

And so: we return to the use of the word "cretin". Please state whether you also think "moron" is unacceptable, because it's much less archaic than "cretin"? Is "imbecile"? Is "idiot"? By your logic, the same applies, surely?

And since you rather rashly decided to kick this all off by making some clunkily snide point about my journalistic integrity, would you mind explaining to me, to any readers, and perhaps your editor, how you could possibly decide to justify your article with some amazingly selective crap you'd read in "the urban dictionary", and then compound your lack of professionalism by deliberately lying abut the Concise Oxford Dictionary’s primary definition of the word "cretin", when you could very well see that what you cited was the second, effectively archaic, description?

Do forgive me if I decline to take lectures in journalistic integrity from you….

Yo Zushi
07 September 2009 at 14:36

It's unfortunate that what should have been a small semantic argument has escalated into something more personal, and I apologise if my words in the original blog were a little barbed. I never intended to lecture you on your "journalistic integrity" -- I actually like your writing. But I genuinely feel that your use of "cretin" was inappropriate.

I didn't "deliberately lie" about the Concise English Dictionary (I'm looking at the Clarendon Press, 1995 edition right now). It really does have "a person who is deformed and mentally retarded as the result of a thyroid deficiency" as the first, primary meaning of "cretin". "A stupid person" is there, too, but as meaning number two.