Asperger's has been pushed off of the Euphemism Treadmill by the APA from their DSM book, the same organisation that had homosexuality down as a mental illness.

Asperger's has been pushed off of the Euphemism Treadmill by the APA from their DSM book, the same organisation that had homosexuality down as a mental illness. It's replacement: "Autism spectrum disorder". Now when you put something in a 'spectrum' it allows you to talk about somebody with a very mild tick, and someone with an extreme condition in the same breath. Some examples: "homosexuality"(sic), "perversion", "alcoholism", "racism" and "substance abuse". You can put any of those on a spectrum and it will allow you to make some very unfair comparisons between two very different people. I disagree that putting anything on a spectrum provides a great deal of insight. I think it's intellectually lazy and actually quite dangerous an idea. I find as you found, that people can use it to blur lines that should not be blurred. A relative once said that the autism spectrum helped her understand that her son's and husband's predisposition to use logic to justify their behaviour was a genetic fault. She found that concept comforting, because otherwise she couldn't understand why they don't agree with her on certain matters. Neither of them have been diagnosed, and they seem perfectly fine to me. I pointed out to her that that didn't represent a huge leap in understanding them. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Association#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Associati... [1] http://www.aane.org/about_asperger_syndrome/as_dsmv.html http://www.aane.org/about_asperger_syndrome/as_dsmv.html [2] http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-treadmill-replacing-r-word.html http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-treadmi...