My husband's ex so-called common in law wife, not real marriage called my husband Deaf and Dumb over the VRS relay call and he was hurts.
My husband told his ex that's insults and she said well you don't understand, his ex is hearing, does she have the right to called him deaf and dumb ?
This really pissed me right off and we all know we are all not deaf and dumb, why do hearing thinks we are, they are totally wrong.
What would you do if someone calls you deaf and dumb ?
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I find that calling deaf a dumb is very CRUEL and INHUMAN!
From Dictionary.com
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dumb said:
Our Living Language : In ordinary spoken English, a sentence such as He is dumb will be interpreted to mean "He is stupid" rather than "He lacks the power of speech." "Lacking the power of speech" is, however, the original sense of the word, but it has been eclipsed by the meaning "stupid." For this change in meaning, it appears that the Germans are responsible. German has a similar and related word dumm that means "stupid," and over time, as a result of the waves of German immigrants to the United States, it has come to influence the meaning of English dumb. This is one of dozens of marks left by German on American English. Some words, like kindergarten, dachshund, and schnapps still have a German feel or are associated to some extent with Germany, but others, like bum, cookbook, fresh (in the meaning "impertinent"), rifle, and noodle have become so thoroughly Americanized their German origins may surprise some.
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For 2,000 years the word "dumb" in English meant "unable to speak". It had no reference to intelligence at all.
In my lifetime:
Fifty years ago, before ASL was considered a language, before civil rights, before ADA -- FRIENDS of the Deaf World, such as my mother, used the term "deaf and dumb" to describe people who could neither hear nor speak. They were using the word in its original meaning of mute and never once gave a thought to any reference to intelligence or lack of it.
People who were disdainful of Deaf, often authority figures such as police, teachers, social workers, called Deaf people "dummies" -- referring to the ventriloquist's dummy who had no voice of their own until the ventriloquist spoke. They did this openly with no thought of repercussions or political consequences.
People who nowadays would be called oralists, but in those days were called liberals, decided the best thing they could do for deaf people was fight against the ignorance of the masses and convince people that deaf were not "dumb" they were as smart as anybody -- Never realizing they were campaigning for their own ignorance, both of the language and of the people who were using the terms.
Their proof that deaf mutes were as smart as anybody wasn't that they were as smart as anybody -- but that they could learn to read lips and use their voices just like normal people. I met these people as a child, my best friend was a CODA who taught me sign, and I never saw one of them who could sign or had any respect for sign language.
The first thing they did was attack people who were friendly to the Deaf community and antagonized them and in the process encouraged Deaf people to reject those hearing who cared the most about them. The message was, "People who use the phrase 'deaf and dumb' are your enemy," somehow lumping them with the same people who called Deaf people "dummies".
It had no effect on people who disdained the deaf community until Stokoe proved ASL was a language, the civil rights movement succeeded, and ADA came into effect. Then openly anti deaf people in authority had to at least pretend to show some respect for the Deaf community.
I don't know if this post effects the way you view someone who uses the term "deaf and dumb" or not, but my first reaction is to look past the words and try to understand what the person means and why they are using it.
I wasn't there, and I don't know the age or attitude of Moonflower's grandmother, but it is possible the poor old lady was judged unfairly.