I don’t know about puns but I once saw a documentary about a deaf and mute married couple who had a baby. The interesting thing was that the baby started “babbling” with its hands. Can’t remember if it was deaf and/or mute as well.
I know historically “deaf and dumb” meant deaf and mute, but, at least in the classes I took in college, I was told we don’t use that terminology anymore, for hopefully obvious reasons.
This isn’t replacing a euphemism with another one. Dumb has a completely different meaning that’s not even close to ‘cannot speak’, while ‘mute’ conveys exactly that.
I had asked DDG for a translation and it only told me about “dumb”. In the back of my head I thought that there was a better word but it wouldn’t come to me.
I don’t know about puns but I once saw a documentary about a deaf and mute married couple who had a baby. The interesting thing was that the baby started “babbling” with its hands. Can’t remember if it was deaf and/or mute as well.
I know historically “deaf and dumb” meant deaf and mute, but, at least in the classes I took in college, I was told we don’t use that terminology anymore, for hopefully obvious reasons.
The euphemism treadmill spins round and round…
This isn’t replacing a euphemism with another one. Dumb has a completely different meaning that’s not even close to ‘cannot speak’, while ‘mute’ conveys exactly that.
Mute.
Please do not use “dumb”.
Thanks!
I had asked DDG for a translation and it only told me about “dumb”. In the back of my head I thought that there was a better word but it wouldn’t come to me.
My non-deaf and non-mute baby also does hand babbling and will sometimes try to mimic us when we sign. Normal baby behaviour.