Funny but I think if you used the term “feeble minded” today almost no one would be offended but the word “moron” was coined because “feeble minded” was deemed too offensive at the time. Then “retarded” was coined because “moron” was deemed too offensive. Now the word “retarded” is radioactive. Think I’ll use feeble minded. Time is a flat circle.
Of course "feeble minded" is being used to describe Joe Biden these days and nobody is offended.
Look up the Massachusetts Institute for the Feeble Minded and see what they did there. Later named the Fernald School, it did not have a very good record at all. It was a site of radiation experiments on the inmates (patients?), sponsored by Quaker Oats and settled in 1998.
ReplyDeleteIdiots. —Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that or a normal child of about two years.
ReplyDeleteImbeciles. —Those whose development is higher than that of an idiot, but whose intelligence does not exceed that of a normal child of about seven years.
Morons. —Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.
— Edmund Burke Huey, Backward and Feeble-Minded Children, 1912