I don’t know if I’m just becoming overly sensitive to my own language or if this is an actual issue, so feel free to let me know if it seems that I just need to grow thicker skin, but still.
I keep getting this uneasy feeling whenever I use the word “lame” and I think it’s because I’m starting to realize it’s technically ableist. However, there’s no single non-profane word that I know of that fits the niche that I use it in.
For example, I wrote out something earlier about a behavior I do that I don’t like that I do because I think it’s kind of shitty behavior, but it’s overall harmless. I use lame to describe it casually. I could also call it kind of shitty, as I did before, but not to audiences that I don’t want to use profanity around.
Anyone know of a word I can replace “lame” with?
I’d say maybe weak, but that’s got its own baggage that I’m not sure I’m ok with switching to. Annoying is too strong of a word for what I’m going for. Maybe lame is a short word for “this makes me feel slightly sad”?
Idk, so I open it up to the public: Is this even an issue or am I being too sensitive? Could this be solved in a single replacement word or do I need a whole ass phrase to express this?
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Coming up with an alternative to the word “lame” seems like the wrong way go about this. To you, a lame thing is a thing you don’t like. That’s what it means to me, I’d wager that’s what it means to a lot of people. Saying it is a knee-jerk reaction. Any word you pick to replace it will have the same negative connotation. Instead of picking a short word to use to describe a thing you don’t like, stop and think about why you don’t like the thing and use that reason as your statement of disapproval. Or, if you’re just saying you don’t like a thing, maybe that sentiment doesn’t need to be expressed.
if you’re just saying you don’t like a thing, maybe that sentiment doesn’t need to be expressed.
That sounds like a way to become a double-plus-good citizen. Disapproval and dissent are essential parts of social communication, which doesn’t always allow to explain yourself in detail.
The point is the word ‘lame’ was originally ableist and using it makes op uncomfortable, even if the meaning changed with time.
Yes, I know. I’m not a nimrod.
They were asking for alternatives and I provided one.
Maybe dull or boring?
I’ve also stopped using the word ‘dumb’ when referring to ‘stupid’. Nowadays I only use the word dumb for muteness, and I rarely even use that word anymore, mostly mute.
I’m not mute, but to me, using “dumb” to describe someone who is mute sounds… worse? It feels like the equivalent of recognizing that “crazy” has baggage and not using it in everyday speech, but continuing to use it to describe mentally ill people. I understand that it’s not a perfect comparison, but it feels like sometimes, words become too enmeshed in their modern-day insulting uses to feel okay using them to describe a community, even if it is the technical definition of the word.
If anyone who is mute/nonverbal/nonspeaking sees this and I’m wrong - please let me know!! I don’t mean to overstep, I just want to share my perspective.
I gotta agree with you.
It feels like dumb has more baggage than meaning to the point that the baggage has become the meaning. I feel like lame is on the precipice of having the same problem, which is kind of a big motivator for me making this post to begin with.
Is that a bad thing, though?
Language evolves, words start by describing something, to become euphemisms for something else, to become swears, to end up as a description of the swear, and ultimately get either reused as a description of something else, or fall out of use.
Sounds to me like “lame” or “dumb” are quite far gone on that progression, to the point of becoming detached from the original meaning for most people. It’s great to avoid using them with the slur meaning, or in presence of those who understand it as a slur… but spreading awareness of, or teaching, the negative meaning to people who might have never encountered it, sounds like pushing the progression backwards, entrenching the word as a slur even among those who don’t use it as one.
It’s a real issue. I think the kids say “downbad” though that’s a little more emphatic. “Square” might work if you’re willing to go old-school. “Disappointing”, “suboptimal”, “lousy” all work in certain contexts.
Personally, I think it’s fantastic that you’re examining your language in this way. It’s certainly not ill-mannered, unsolicitous, infelicitous, or untoward of you to do so.
Ahh those are all fantastic, thank you!
Cheugy
This post is so FlickOfTheBean (Just kidding, of course. I sometimes use “meh” around people who know what a meme is, or “lukewarm” around more older or formal people)
“Unfortunate”, maybe.
To me, the definition of ‘lame’ meaning like a lame leg or something is too dated to be the first thing most people think of in most contexts.
That’s my thinking too. It’s too removed from its roots to really have a negative context for most folks.
As a rancher “lame” is in regular usage, but it’s something that happens to animals and not to people.
A person with a persistent leg injury would simply be referred to with a sentence like “Jim’s got a bad leg, he’s walked like that since a bull ran him over”
Good friend of mine has a gimpy leg after 2 too many motorcycle accidents. He is lucky to have one of them at all. I dont think “lame” has ever come up in context of him or his infirmary.
‘Gimpy’ in this context is definitely an ablist slur.
Maybe use “sucks”? Or “uncool” (“That thing I did was so uncool. It was really sucky.”) would probably be my top suggestions.
I have seen signs hung around nearby schools trying to get the word “gay” out of common use to mean the same thing that “lame” is used for, but I don’t remember a lot of the things that were on the list. If I find a copy of the sign (or one like it) I’ll add it. (ok, that was 5 years ago, so they may not still be used? … That’s naive, even for me.)
As someone else said, though, I think it’s used so infrequently to mean “disabled” in modern English, that you probably don’t have to worry about it.
Also, I like using “weak-sauce” if I have to watch my language - I think I’m too old to use “cringe” as often, unless it’s, like, really cringe.
P.s. I’m disabled, walking problems, bad back, one leg a little shorter than the other… I use “lame” to mean shitty/uncouth/sucky/disappointing/boring and don’t take offense to it…
Weak-sauce is the exact essence of what I’m trying to get at, but it’s too… Millennial… Like, internally there’s no issue with using it, but saying/typing it out to someone older than me feels distinctly cringe (in the lightest sense, though lol just like something you’re not supposed to do, you know?)
I’m a Millennial and “weak sauce” sounds pretty cringe. Or as someone said in this thread, infelicitous. It’s very 2010s. It had its time; it’s time we moved on from it, collectively lol…
(I had to check where I fall these days, since I thought of myself as Gen X forever, especially vs Millennial, but I guess I’m a Xennial?)
Anyway, I feel like “cringe” is in this same bucket :-P
No cap?
I literally had to look that up in Urban Dictionary when I started hearing that. I think that’s a sign haha…
Maybe use “sucks”?
“Sucks” has homophobic/misogynist roots, though, and they’re much more recent than the ableist usage of “lame”. Even the 1950’s version of “sucks eggs” wasn’t actually talking about the things that come from a chicken.
Yeah if I say something sucks, I find myself often adding “and not in a good way”.
Thanks, I didn’t realize that, either. I always thought it literal eggs, or literal lemons, or literal donkey-balls… (none of which sound pleasant to me)
This whole thread is enlightening to me, so thanks for asking and making your language more inclusive, OP!
“Cringe” is seemingly used that way in current slang, though with an added layer of thought.
“Cringe” doesn’t have the emotional devastation that “lame” with an eyeroll does, at least according to my mother.
Only because your mom grew up with lame. If she was your age and grew up with cringe, it would hit the same way. I’m a bit in that group, I just am very attached to language so am a bit more sensitive to how it’s used to see the parallels.
Oh I’m not disagreeing, cringe is 1000% worse than lame to me. I just think it’s really funny how devastated she would be every time I said something she liked was “lame”.
Your mother is wrong:
IDC lame but I’d move mountains to avoid being cringe
You try telling my mother she’s wrong, I’m not fighting that woman over something subjective like “cringe” lol
“Cringe” is still a verb to many people, and being understanding of different interpretations leads to better dialogue. Knowing how to bridge those gaps with effective language can lead to intergenerational cooperation.
Pure snark which I hope you’ll see is intended to show I’m saying this as some gentle ribbing and not to put down your perspective.
Cringe is just too visceral for what I’m describing though.
Lame would be a 3/10 while cringe would be like a 5/10, using cringe in its least meaningful form. A full on cringe is like a 8/10 (and depending on who I’m talking to, it seems to sometimes hit like a 10/10)
Cringe is far too overused IMHO. Especially online.
If something is “lame” it’s probably unoriginal, derivative, boring, or annoying.
i’m also interested in this. particularly within gaming, lame has a specific connotation of referring to “anti-fun” strategies in a derogatory way that’s hard to replace (things like camping, cheap strats, spamming, etc). but, for similar reasons as to what you’ve outlined, i’d like to substitute it
but otoh i wonder if we’re kind of settling on what language is acceptable for derogatory use and what isn’t. the r word is not okay, but dumb/stupid is, even though they’re technically the same origin. perhaps lame falls into the same category? i haven’t seen anyone overly upset over it’s use, anyways
things like camping, cheap strats, spamming, etc
So 100 years ago that behaviour would be termed “boorish”.
Uncool or cringe maybe? Boring might also fit.
Shitty
I’ve been using directly negative adjectives like “bad” or “unsatisfying.”
Moron, imbecile, and dullard came out of eugenics IIRC. Does “lame” have that origin too?
I’ve heard it used to refer to injured or weakened legs, as well as the creature they’re attached to. As in, “the cow was lame because of its injured hoof.” I’ve heard it used to refer to something that is boring or disappointing. “That movie was lame.” or “That was lame.”
I wouldn’t doubt that there is some negative connotation for it though. Terrible people tend to take innocuous words and twist them to suit their schemes.
Moron, imbecile, and dullard came out of eugenics IIRC
They were used in law texts before the eugenics movement… people were just fine with dehumanizing language back then.
The same people that pushed the Eugenics movement were probably the same people that got those into the law texts however.
Kind of.
Plato in 400BC already proposed breeding out the “weak”, so it’s not like the idea of eugenics is particularly new.
The word “moron” was created in the 20th century as a “scientific” word… by one of the main proponents of the modern eugenics movement, which started in the 19th century, with no prior use, so yeah, that one is definitely burned.
“Dullard” comes from 10th century English, already with a derogatory meaning, but it seems like English preferred using “lunatic”, “mad” or “insane” in its legal wording.
“Idiot” comes from ancient Greek meaning “layman”, “ignorant”, later “illiterate”, and only in the 14th centuries it came to mean “stupid” or “mentally deficient”, and then it went on to differentiate the “mentally deficient” from the “lunatics” (mentally ill).
“Imbecile” is more interesting, it seems to stem from the Latin “in-bacillus” or “without little staff”… which has gone through the meanings of “weak”, “cowardly”, “impotent”… and knowing Romans and their insults, is likely to have started as just “dickless”, which is kind of mild for the period. There is however some 17th century legal stuff where women got considered as invalid witnesses “because of imbecility and sexual frailty”, which seems to be about when the word took its modern meaning.
Overall, the Eugenics movement seems to have mostly used words that were already established for centuries, just pushed them a few steps farther.
Reminds me of “Hysteria” which was effectively just the medical excuse to penalize women for getting “uppity.” Nowadays, there’s even one that the police have been using recently called “excited delirium” or something, which is what they try to compel coroners to use when they kill someone through unreasonable levels of force when those people fight for their lives.
The story of “hysteria” starts at around 2000BC, in ancient Egypt, when they thought the uterus was a sort of “animal” that could wander around the body. At least it had an easy symptomatic solution, not exactly a penalty for the women reaching “paroxysmal convulsions”, and it devolved into the invention of the vibrator, with its cheap hand-cranked version, and poor Hitachi unable to separate its brand from the wand no matter how much they try. With a sad irony, it did play a role in the eugenics… hysteria? of the 19th-20th centuries. The film by the same name, may have painted a slightly different picture.
I didn’t know of “excited delirium”, and apparently the term has been withdrawn, it’s “hyperactive delirium syndrome” starting this year… remains to be seen whether it keeps targeting tased black males in restraints (damn, the US has a big problem).
