Such process is called Euphemism treadmill [1]. From Wikipedia article on Intellectual disability [2] there is a list of historical medical terms. Nowadays use

Such process is called Euphemism treadmill [1]. From Wikipedia article on Intellectual disability [2] there is a list of historical medical terms. Nowadays used in offensive manner are: Cretin, Idiot, Imbecile, Moron, Retard. Same will probably happen (or already happened in some cases) with Disabled. Probably same process takes place for many corporate terms. I observed this in my time at Samsung when internal organisation for CSR [3] changed name from POSITIVE_ADJECTIVE Workplace to New Management Committee. I am through most of my career a C++ programmer and have personal interest in C/Unix programming. For one project I was working on JavaScript code base with Web developers. I've seen different terminology used for same things. When you study a bit of history or historical code bases then you will also see that terminology changed. I could say that web developers are reinventing a wheel and terminology with it, but every generation seems to do this again and again. It probably is related to the same mechanism. It must be often easier to name things than to learn their previously assigned names. Mostly because you don't know what to look for. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism_treadmill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism_treadmill [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_disability#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_disability#Termin... [3] Corporate Social Responsibility