Campaign against ‘offensive’ phrases

November 1995

A Rosslare woman has taken up a fight on behalf of people suffering from mental illness, claiming they are hurt and offended by everyday phrases such as ‘ loony’, ‘nutcase’, ‘crackpot’, and ‘ looper’.

Siobhan Whitehead, a member of the National Concil of the Schizophrenia Association of Ireland, told the Association’s annual conference in Galway last weekend that such references should be removed from the English language.

Ms Whitehead, who lives in Kilrane, Rosslare Harbour, and who is also a member of the Irish Medical Council, said that while schoolbooks have been altered to show equality between the sexes, nothing has been done to remove offensive phrases describing people who are mentally ill.

‘ There is uproar if women are displayed in school books in a passive role,’ she said. ‘Children are reprimanded for using sexist language, and rightly so, but no-one picks up on children calling other children ‘nuts’ or ‘ loony’. Why not?

‘It’s because there has never been a group vocal enough to pressurise the Department of Education into formulating a policy on this issue,’ she said.

‘ The feminist groups have already brought about a change to the education system. Yet ten per cent of us will suffer a psychiatric illness during our lives and still we say nothing. No wonder sufferers and their families are frightened to come out of the closet,’ she said.