So we’re in the car on the way to Friendlies last night and Snoop Maddie Mad brings up the subject of Leprechauns. She asks if I ever saw a Leprechaun to which I replied- why yes I had. Just last week in Playa Del Carmen they had this Mexican Midget dressed up like a leprechaun who was paid to corral patrons into the bar.
I was immediately interrupted by someone I may or may not be related to through marriage telling me that I shouldn’t say that word. To which I replied, “When did it become inappropriate to say Leprechaun?”
I was informed that we don’t call Midgets Midgets any longer, they are called “little people” Wait, what?
When did the term Midget become a bad word? Like when we grew up didn’t we always call midgets midgets?
I seriously never knew it was considered a slight to call a midget a midget. Does a midget not know they are a midget any more? Do they look in the mirror and not know they are a midget? Or is it just the word midget recently become taboo or something. If I’ve ever offended a midget in the past by calling them a midget and they considered it a bad term I guess I’d apologize but don’t you think it’s a much more accurate term for a small person that grows old but stays really short?
Calling someone a little person isn’t really all that descriptive is it? For example my Snoop Maddie Mad is a little person but she’s not a midget (at least not that I can tell yet). So that “little people” description is far less descriptive than the word midget because there’s no mistaking what you’re talking about when you use the word midget, right?
Is the term Midget off the table nowadays and if so is this a new development?
Little Person vs Midget What Do You Think?
Good Morning Gloucester 
Dude, if you were a midget you wouldn’t want to be called one, just sayin’
Sent from my iPad
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Really? I didn’t know it was a derogatory term.
Isn’t that like saying to my black friend- hey you’re black.
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I think it’s more comparable to calling your black friend a “negro”, Joey. It’s an outdated term.
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Thanks for the laugh! I respect a small persons right to want to be called a small person, though your argument is sound – all midgets are small people but not all small people are midgets.
And actually, isn’t the technical medical term “dwarfism”, therein making midgets dwarves? I think there needs to be a third choice in the poll,
Jamero
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Why do we always have to label a group? Why don’t we call them or any other group of people; PEOPLE, HUMANS.
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Somehow it adds color to the storytelling if you identify the person you met the other day as oh say, a film star, or a mass-murderer, or a plumber. Things like that help explain where the character is coming from and make the story more interesting.
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It is not labeling. It is property. Should I be offended when I go to a foreign country and I called white? Also I find it more offensive to call someone “little people” than midget. Calling someone a midget only says that it has a certain height. Little has a bunch of other connotation.
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I’m guessing that the WASPy Boston Brahmins had some choice terms for the italian immigrants that settled in “their” city in the early 1900’s. I bet that they were surprised when some of these people found offense to these terms 30 years later. You don’t get to decide what is offensive, you just have the choice to be decent about it or not. (What is decent now will probably change a little over the next 30 years.)
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yeah guinneas
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There are a few more that I heard growing up that referred to my Italian American friends, I’m merely a cracker.
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Yes Joey midget is off the table now, considered offensive and replaced by little people until further notice. Dwarfism is another thing altogether medically but I’ll save that for your Leprechaun post. I’m still lmao.
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Next thing you know, the PC police will insist we call Fat Slobs “weight challenged untidy people”. GET OVER IT, kill everything PC befire it kills our society!
MIDGET – there, I said it! Deal with it…
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Statistically speaking, six out of seven dwarfs are not happy…..
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I thought Randy Newman put this argument to rest!
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Yeah it’s a pretty derogatory term, I think. I’m totally cool with little people being touchy over it and not wanting to be a source of entertainment. Peter Dinklage (who is amazing and awesome and Game of Thrones is the best show in the world) brought to light how shitty it is, when he mentioned Martin Henderson in an awards acceptance speech. Henderson is a dwarf who was “tossed” by a bunch of drunks outside a bar. He can no longer walk properly and has an even harder time getting around. And that shit happens pretty frequently.
So yeah…people can say “Oh, the PC police, blah blah.” But it’s not the PC police, it’s just human decency.
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Ray: A lot of midgets tend to kill themselves. A disproportionate amount, actually. Hervé Villechaize off of Fantasy Island. I think somebody from the Time Bandits did. I suppose they must get really sad about like… being really little and that… people looking at them, laughing at them, calling them names. You know, “short arse”. There’s another famous midget. I miss him but I can’t remember. It’s not the R2D2 man; no, he’s still going. I hope your midget doesn’t kill himself. Your dream sequence will be fucked.
Chloë: He doesn’t like being called a midget. He prefers dwarf.
Ray: This is exactly my point! People going around calling you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf. Of course you’re going to blow your head off.
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Warwick Davis? He’s hilarious when teamed with Ricky Gervaise. They make a wonderfully acerbic duo.
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For the record, it’s not that new that we don’t call little people “midgets.” It’s been the subject of a number of articles and reports for at least 20 years now.
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Coincidences. They’re everywhere. Last night I was talking about this exact same subject with friends. We were trying to find the moral center. Then I see this post this morning. Then I read this article tonight. No direct point really, but I’m glad we’re thinking about it collectively. Here’s an amazing, disturbing story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2279410/How-seven-dwarfs-Auschwitz-fell-spell-Dr-Death-The-hideous-experiments-carried-Nazi-Josef-Mengele-seven-trusting-brothers-sisters.html?ICO=most_read_module
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One of my friends is half Italian and half Irish. He calls himself a Wopochaun.
I am a SWAMI. Single White Adult Male Intellectual.
I would wear a turban but then some folks would think I was a towel head and want to kill me.
Does GOD mean Gay Old Deity?
Preppers sounds close to Preppies but they are completely different.
Midgies are the flying teeth at sunset.
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Preppers are usually served stuffed with cheese and deep-fried.
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I think that this is the largest number of comments I’ve ever seen on any particular Joey rant that I’ve ever seen — I like it! It’s great that so many people have enough thought on the subject to take the trouble to write in. Myself, I figure that if any member of a social group or sub-group is offended (or pleased) by someone else’s reference to them, they are entitled to speak up, and all the rest of us are similarly entitled to listen, think, and decide like grown-ups what the decent thing is to do. My definition of PC has changed over the years to basically go along with the Golden Rule, and everyone else can define that the way they see fit.
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Be as sick as you want just give me a goddamn bass line.
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The word “midget” isn’t, by itself, derogatory. Perhaps, it has been used as a slight often enough that it has become demeaning. Even if that is the case, I think another word that means “midget” needs to be coined because “little person/people” is not descriptive enough to distinguish what is being spoken about. A dwarf is not a midget. They are two very different dynamics and without the distinction any medical issues would be treated similarly and would result in death for some. And, neither of these is simply a shorter than average person. Besides “little people/person” sounds derogatory. I mean, when someone displays a greater level of maturity than another, he is said to be the “bigger person”. Calling someone a “little person” not only implies that they a small but that they are also immature.
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