Spastic
Encyclopedia
The word spastic is used differently depending on location which has led to some controversy and misunderstanding. Derived via Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 from the Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 spastikos ("drawing in" or "tugging"), the word originally referred to a change in muscles affected by the medical condition
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

 spasticity
Spasticity
Spasticity is a feature of altered skeletal muscle performance in muscle tone involving hypertonia, which is also referred to as an unusual "tightness" of muscles...

, which is seen in spastic diplegia
Spastic diplegia
Spastic diplegia, historically known as Little's Disease, is a form of cerebral palsy that is a neuromuscular condition of hypertonia and spasticity in the muscles of the lower extremities of the human body, usually those of the legs, hips and pelvis...

 and many other forms of cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....

 and in terms such as "spastic colon", with no negative connotation, as it is accurately descriptive of the condition. In India the word "spastic" is also used neutrally, with The Spastics Society of India
The Spastics Society of India
The Spastics Society of India is India’s most noted non-profit and a Non-governmental organization , working for Neuro-Muscular and Developmental Disabilities...

  non-profit
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 and non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...

 (NGO
Indian NGOs
Indian Non-governmental organizations can be set up under various Indian laws, and the different legal entities under which civil society organizations can register themselves are: -Registered Societies:...

), working for neuro-muscular and developmental disabilities.

The word in common speech can also be used in a pejorative context. The level of severity depends on whether one understands it as it is used in the United States or the United Kingdom. In the UK it is considered an offensive way to refer to the disabled.

Evolution of the term in the United Kingdom and Ireland

This medical term "spastic" became used to describe cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....

. The Spastics Society, a UK charity for people with cerebral palsy, was founded in 1951.

However, the word began to be used as an insult and became a term of abuse used to imply stupidity
Stupidity
Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense. It may be innate, assumed, or reactive - 'being "stupid with grief" as a defence against trauma', a state marked with 'grief and despair...making even simple daily tasks a hardship'....

 or physical ineptness: one who is uncoordinated or incompetent, or a fool. The mental connotation derived from a common misconception that those with any physical disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...

 resulting in spasticity would necessarily also have a mental or developmental disability
Developmental disability
Developmental disability is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments, manifested prior to age 18. It is not synonymous with "developmental delay" which is often a consequence of a temporary illness or trauma during...

. It was often colloquially abbreviated to shorter forms such as "spaz" or "spa". As a neighbouring English-speaking country, the insult spread to Ireland also and became one of the most prominent and insulting terms used in playgrounds.

Its derogatory use grew considerably in the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...

. This is sometimes attributed to the BBC children's show Blue Peter
Blue Peter
Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...

. During the International Year of Disabled Persons
International Year of Disabled Persons
The year 1981 was proclaimed the International Year of Disabled Persons by the United Nations. It called for a plan of action with an emphasis on equalization of opportunities, rehabilitation and prevention of disabilities...

 (1981), several episodes featured a man with cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella term encompassing a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement....

 (described as a "spastic") named Joey Deacon
Joey Deacon
Joseph John "Joey" Deacon was a British author and television personality.-Biography:Joseph "Joey" Deacon was born with severe cerebral palsy, a neurological condition which left him with a muscular "spastic pattern", particularly arms and legs, resulting in a tendency of muscular tonus in the...

. Phrases such as "joey", "deacon", and "spaz" became popular insults amongst children at that time.

The Spastics Society changed its name to Scope
Scope (British charity)
Scope is a London-based charity, which operates in England and Wales, focusing on people with cerebral palsy particularly, and disabled people in general. Its aim is that disabled people achieve equality....

 in 1994. The words then gradually dropped out of common usage as the majority of British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 society came to regard them as offensive and politically incorrect
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...

. (Since then, the terms "Scope", "Scoper" or "Scopie" have been used as insults.) Interestingly, the similar-sounding "scobie" is also used as an insult in Dublin, however "scobie" is also a surname of Scottish origin so that may be where that insult came from.

In the mid-1980s, some people attempted to "reclaim" the term. This is the meaning in the Ian Dury
Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...

 and the Blockheads song "Spasticus (Autisticus)
Spasticus (Autisticus)
"Spasticus Autisticus" is a song written by Ian Dury and co-written by Chaz Jankel, released both as a single and on the album Lord Upminster.- Criticism and history :...

", and it is also used in the Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....

 book Gridlock
Gridlock (novel)
Gridlock is a 1991 novel by Ben Elton.-Plot summary:The novel depicts a near-future London in which traffic congestion has reached almost critical levels, such that accidents in a few key places could bring the entire city's traffic network to a halt. The government is aware of the problem and...

. There is also a movie called "I'm Spasticus".

The current understanding of the word is well-illustrated by a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 survey in 2003, which found that "spastic" was the second most offensive term in the UK relating to disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...

 (retard was deemed most offensive). In 2007, Lynne Murphy, a linguist at the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....

, described the term as being "one of the most taboo insults to a British ear".

Evolution of the term in the United States

In American slang, the term "spaz" is largely inoffensive, and is generally understood as a casual word for clumsiness, sometimes associated with over excitement
Psychomotor agitation
Psychomotor agitation is a series of unintentional and purposeless motions that stem from mental tension and anxiety of an individual. This includes pacing around a room, wringing one's hands, pulling off clothing and putting it back on and other similar actions...

, excessive energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, or hyperactivity. Its usage has been documented as far back as the mid 1950s. In 1965, film critic Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....

, explained to her readers, "The term that American teenagers now use as the opposite of 'tough' is 'spaz'. A spaz is a person who is courteous to teachers, plans for a career, and believes in official values. A spaz is something like what adults still call a square." The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

columnist similarly explained to readers that spaz meant "You're strictly from 23-skidoo." Benjamin Zimmer
Benjamin Zimmer
Benjamin Zimmer is an American linguist and lexicographer. He is the executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com. He was the "On Language" columnist for The New York Times Magazine from March 2010 to February 2011 and formerly a research associate at the University of...

, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

's Institute for Research in Cognitive Sciences, writes that by the mid 1960s the American usage of the term spaz shifted from "its original sense of 'spastic or physically uncoordinated person' to something more like 'nerdy, weird or uncool person.'" By contrast, in a June 2005 newsletter for "American Dialect Society", Zimmer reports that the "earliest [written] occurrence of uncoordinated "spaz" (as opposed to uncool "spaz")?" is found in The Elastik Band's 1967 "undeniably tasteless garage-rock single" "Spazz".

Later in 1978, Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....

 introduced a character Charles Knerlman, aka "Chaz the Spaz" on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

, in a skit with Bill Murray called "Nerds". Bill Murray later starred in the movie Meatballs
Meatballs (film)
Meatballs is a 1979 Canadian comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman. It is noted for the first film appearance of Bill Murray in a starring role and for launching Reitman into a distinguished career of financially successful comedies including Stripes and Ghostbusters , both starring Murray...

which had a character named "Spaz." Both shows portrayed a spaz as a nerd or somebody uncool in a comic setting. Thus, while Blue Peter shaped the modern British understanding of the term, American viewers were being bombarded with a different image. In time, the term spaz, like its counterparts nerd
Nerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...

and geek
Geek
The word geek is a slang term, with different meanings ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to...

, lost its offensive nature and evolved into a term often used in self-deprecation.

The term occasionally appears in other North American movies or TV series such as Friends and receives a different reaction from British and American audiences. In one episode, Rachel refers to herself as a "laundry spaz" due to her inability to do the laundry. This comment was deemed offensive enough by the British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...

 to give the episode a 12 rating. Other episodes in the series are rated a step lower at PG.

The difference in understanding of the term between British and American audiences was highlighted by an incident with the golfer Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. Formerly the World No...

; after losing the US Masters Tournament in 2006, he said, "I was so in control from tee to green, the best I've played for years... But as soon as I got on the green I was a spaz." His remarks were broadcast and drew no attention in America. But they were widely reported in Britain, where they caused offence and were condemned by a representative of Scope
Scope (British charity)
Scope is a London-based charity, which operates in England and Wales, focusing on people with cerebral palsy particularly, and disabled people in general. Its aim is that disabled people achieve equality....

 and Tanni Grey-Thompson
Tanni Grey-Thompson
Carys Davina "Tanni" Grey-Thompson, Baroness Grey-Thompson, DBE is a Welsh athlete and TV presenter.Grey-Thompson was born with spina bifida and uses a wheelchair. She is considered to be one of the most successful disabled athletes in the UK...

, a prominent paralympian
Paralympic Games
The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical disability compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and Cerebral Palsy. There are Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, which are held immediately following their...

. On learning of the furor over his comments, Woods' representative promptly apologized.

Most Americans were surprised when they learned about the controversy. In fact, at least one American dictionary (Merriam Webster's) makes no reference to cerebral palsy in its definition or word origins. It simply defines "spaz" as a shortening of the word "spastic" and "one who is inept".

"Spaz" products

Multiple products in America use the word Spaz as part of their name.

Controversy arises if products are sold in the UK under the same name. In particular the manufacturers and importers of the Spazz wheelchair were criticised by the British charity Scope when they put the wheelchair on sale in the UK. Scope expressed a fear that the usage of the word as an insult would increase again, after a steady decline since the 1980s.

A caffeinated lipbalm created by a police officer is called "SpazzStick
SpazzStick
SpazzStick claims to be the world's only caffeinated lip balm. It was created by Richie Holschen, the only cop in the remote Alaskan village of Kaktovik, who needed to protect his lips and remain alert in an area so cold that coffee freezes. When he first started making the product in 2004, he...

." "Spaz-Stix" is a company that produces high end remote control car/plane paints.

An energy drink is called "Spaz Juice" and has a slogan, "all the energy you need to annoy everybody else."

The Transformers
Transformers (toy line)
The is a line of toys produced by the American toy company Hasbro. The Transformers toyline was created from toy molds mostly produced by Japanese company Takara in the toylines Diaclone and Microman. Other toy molds from other companies such as Bandai were used as well...

 Power Core Combiners line of robot toys includes a character named "Spastic". Hasbro
Hasbro
Hasbro is a multinational toy and boardgame company from the United States of America. It is one of the largest toy makers in the world. The corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, United States...

, the makers of Transformers, said that it would not release "Spastic" in the UK. This did not stop vocal British fans from alerting various news outlets, eventually resulting in the name being changed for all markets to the less-offensive "Over-Run." The on-box biography for the Transformers toy called Strafe described him as "spastic" in early releases, but when the controversy erupted about the word, they changed the word to "twitchy."

Video games

On June 29, 2007, Ubisoft of France pulled one of their games called Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach
Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach
Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach, known as Nounenrei: Nou Stress Kei Atama Scan in Japan, is a mental training game for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable...

, for referring to players who did not perform well at the game as "Super Spastic" which can be construed in the UK as being offensive. The company stated "As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market." Similarly, Nintendo recalled Mario Party 8
Mario Party 8
is a party video game, the eighth installment in the Mario Party series, and is the first title in the series to be released for the Nintendo Wii. It is also the first Mario Party title to have the ability to use Mii characters. It was released in North America on May 29, 2007, in Europe on June...

in the UK after releasing a version containing the line "turn the train spastic" in its dialogue.
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