> Pinker also talks about the "Euphemism Treadmill", where words that were specific medical terms turned into general insults and became unusable because of it

> Pinker also talks about the "Euphemism Treadmill", where words that were specific medical terms turned into general insults and became unusable because of it ("spastic" in my lifetime has gone from a medical description, to a playground insult, to being effectively unusable, a non-word). Thanks for posting that. I've seen many occurrences of this pattern in American English, but I never hard a name for it.