When I was a teenager, the youth centre I went to did an activity where in teams, we had to come up with as many insulting words or phrases as possible (swearing was fine, slurs weren’t). Naturally we responded to this challenge with glee and came up with many insults. Afterwards, we reviewed all the phrases and sorted them into categories, showing that the vast vast majority of insults belonged to just a few categories (one of the largest of which being disability).

Thanks for posting your comment. Ever since that youth centre session, I’ve been acutely aware of how ableist language can sneak its way into my vocabulary (and being disabled doesn’t exempt me from that risk), and yet I still find myself slipping up sometimes because of how normalised ableist language is.