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.
They're doing it backwards; walking up the down slide.
River ,'Ariel'
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.
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Wolfram - Feb 24, 2004 3:49:47 pm PST #6831 of 10005
Visilurking
Jesse - Feb 24, 2004 3:53:38 pm PST #6832 of 10005
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
how about more quote context? Like, "Summers still drives like a spaz" or something. Or, more obscurely, "Istanbul got spazzed!"
sj - Feb 24, 2004 3:54:37 pm PST #6833 of 10005
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
"Istanbul got spazzed!"
I like this.
JenP - Feb 24, 2004 4:02:45 pm PST #6834 of 10005
"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.
Betsy HP - Feb 24, 2004 4:31:04 pm PST #6835 of 10005
If I only had a brain...
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.
RobertH - Feb 24, 2004 7:07:53 pm PST #6836 of 10005
Disaffected college student
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.
bon bon - Feb 24, 2004 7:25:42 pm PST #6837 of 10005
It's five thousand for kissing, ten thousand for snuggling... End of list.
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.
§ ita § - Feb 24, 2004 7:33:47 pm PST #6838 of 10005
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
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.
P.M. Marc - Feb 24, 2004 8:14:05 pm PST #6839 of 10005
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear
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.
Deena - Feb 24, 2004 8:24:32 pm PST #6840 of 10005
How are you me? You need to stop that. Only I can be me. ~Kara
It was pejorative in my grade school and meant something like retard.