Terminology Shift Quotes

Calling someone a drama queen is so negative. Why not 'content creator'?

The term 'niche' is no longer pejorative.

This was long before the term 'single-parent family' came into use; back then it was a 'broken home'.

I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive.

What I do used to be called 'diversity training,' then 'cultural competency' and now, 'anti-racism.' These terms are really useful for periods of time, but then they get coopted, and people build all this baggage around them, and you have to come up with new terms, or else people won't engage.

How come liberals never admit that they're liberal? They've now come up with a new word called 'progressive,' which I thought was an insurance company but apparently it's a label.

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.

My grandparents were colored. My parents were Negroes. And now I am Black.

I begin with the renaming of the system. It used to be capitalism. But that evokes [Karl] Marx and [John] Rockefeller. So now we speak of the market system. That is a nice bland expression, which forgets those off-color references.

I would prefer to abandon the terminology of the past. 'Superpower' is something which we used during the cold war time. Why use it now?

One dictionary that I consulted remarks that "natural history" now commonly means the study of animals and plants "in a popular and superficial way," meaning popular and superficial to be equally damning adjectives. This is related to the current tendency in the biological sciences to label every subdivision of science with a name derived from the Greek. "Ecology" is erudite and profound; while "natural history" is popular and superficial. Though, as far as I can see, both labels apply to just about the same package of goods.

The label “liberalism” or “liberal” has been hijacked over the last century so that now it means something that's a 180 degree opposite of what it originally meant.

I find myself using the word 'executives' now.

I can take a phrase that's rarely heard/Flip it - now it's a daily word

Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

The prefix cyber is going the way of the prefix electro.

I spent most of my life getting the word "negro" to be spelled with a capital "N." By the time I finally got that done people were using the word "black" with a small "b.

The terms "idiot" and "lunatic" were acceptable diagnostic terms in England up until 1959. "Imbecile" and "feeble-minded person" were, likewise, listed as official categories in the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. England has always lagged a bit behind in discarding outdated terms for the disadvantaged. When I was there in 1980, it was still possible to shop for used clothing at the local Spastic Shop. That is, compared to the United States, where it takes, oh, about twenty-five minutes for a diagnostic euphemism to become a conversational faux pas.

that is not the last word; it is not even an apt word; it is a dead word from ten years back.