I really like spaz in the context, but even dictionary.com labels it as "Offensive Slang" (as opposed to just Slang.) So I got to vote against it.
Buffy ,'Showtime'
Bureaucracy 2: Like Sartre, Only Longer
A thread to discuss naming threads, board policy, new thread suggestions, and anything else that has to do with board administration and maintenance. Guaranteed to include lively debate and polls. Natter discouraged, but not deleted.
Current Stompy Feet: ita, Jon B, DXMachina, P.M. Marcontell, Liese S., amych
how about more quote context? Like, "Summers still drives like a spaz" or something. Or, more obscurely, "Istanbul got spazzed!"
"Istanbul got spazzed!"
I like this.
"Istanbul got spazzed!"
Love that.
ETA: I did go to dictionary.com after reading Wolfram's post to enter a bunch of other words that I thought were more or less on the same level of insult, but nary a one of them except for spaz got the offensive slang callout. So, I guess I learned something today.
spaz is offensive because it's short of "spastic", which is a kind of cerebral palsy. I have no idea if it has yet been adopted as affirmative slang in the way that "dyke" has.
While I have no opinion one way or the other on its use in a thread title, I have trouble imagining most of the people who use it today even being aware of its etymology.
I can't believe the Buffistas would take the word of a quasi authority on a linguistic matter. AT LEAST forty people need to weigh in first.
All snark aside, seems like spaz is no worse than "dumb". After all, all pejorative words have negative etymologies. We have any actual empirical evidence of offense? I wouldn't have connected spastic to CP without explicit help.
I wouldn't have connected spastic to CP without explicit help.
On the flip side, I had no idea so few knew.
When it was tossed around in high school, everyone knew. So it's not as distant as "moron" for me. More like "retard." Worse, perhaps.
On the flip side, I had no idea so few knew.
Having had this discussion on LJ in the last six or so months, I think I can safely say it's a US/UK difference. (A UK friend brought it up, and the split in comments was pretty locale specific, with EN-US speakers not seeing anything wrong with the word, or its use in Buffy S3, and EN-UK speakers agreeing that the casual use of it was somewhat jarring.)
Spastic wasn't/isn't in common use here for description of a particular disability, where I gather it was/is in the UK. So spaz here doesn't/didn't (the tense order shift here is intentional) carry the same sort of baggage.
It was pejorative in my grade school and meant something like retard.