Why don't we use the term "feeblemindedness" anymore?

[Mr Rayon]

Or as extensively as we used to?

 

Is it an accurate term to use in scientific papers?

[CaptainPanic]

My Google returns 82,000 hits for feeblemindedness, and 350,000 for feebleminded.

So I am not sure what you mean?

 

Anyway, language has its hypes. Today's words will eventually all be replaced by tomorrow's words. Just read an old book (Dickins or something) or listen to an old movie. They use some funny words that were completely normal back then but are replaced by now. Maybe feeblemindedness is slowly being replaced by 'backward' or 'retarded'?

Edited March 23, 2011 by CaptainPanic

[Marat]

Somehow we demonstrate our lack of prejudice by renaming every group which used to be the object of discrimination by a new name, even if the old name by which the group was known was never used in a discriminatory way. Thus now in Canadian universities, for example, you can forget ever getting tenure if anyone hears you refer to Northern Native people as 'Eskimos' rather than 'Inuit,' though I never heard the word 'Eskimo' used as a term of contempt or racism.

 

A friend of mine in educational development told me that those with the lowest IQ are now being called 'profound,' since their intellects are profoundly inaccessible to contact by those around them. 'Profound' can also mean 'brilliant,' but I suppose that helps avoid the discriminatory implication of people with very low IQ being regarded as, as, ... as having very low IQ.