Let’s put rancour aside as the euphemism treadmill rolls on

‘Let’s recognise that we’re all working towards the same goal: equal opportunity for every individual to participate in society.’ Photograph: Sturti/Getty

The euphemism treadmill strikes again as NHS Digital is criticised for the use of “mental retardation” as a category in statistics it compiles (‘Insulting’: shock as NHS uses offensive term for people with learning disability, 18 October). Understanding the disjunction between innocuous intent and offensive perceptions of the term “mentally retarded” demands a look through history.

Denotationally, the term refers to the empirical fact that, in such individuals, cognitive development has proceeded to less than a typical degree or at less than a typical pace. This denotational truth implies no devaluation of the individuals so labelled (a population that includes family members of mine). In fact, “mentally retarded” at its inception was promoted as a beneficent replacement for its predecessors – “feeble-minded”, “idiot”, “imbecile” and “moron” – each of which in turn had begun as no pejorative but later came to reflect offensive popular prejudices. Thus this very same argument over offensive connotations of words was playing out a century ago.