{"id":9683,"date":"2019-06-20T05:33:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T03:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/?p=9683"},"modified":"2019-12-01T11:09:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T09:09:52","slug":"how-is-john-without-arms-an-ableist-derogatory-brazilian-portuguese-idiom-that-directly-attributes-ignorance-and-laziness-to-disability-and-then-uses-it-a-technical-amputation-descriptor-to-deno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swisswuff.ch\/tech\/?p=9683","title":{"rendered":"How is “John without arms” an ableist derogatory Brazilian \/ Portuguese idiom that directly attributes ignorance and laziness to disability and then uses it a technical amputation descriptor to denote the lazy or ignorant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jo\u00e3o sem bra\u00e7o (“armless John<\/a>“) is a Brazilian or Portuguese idiom that is used as an epithet for an ignorant and lazy person.<\/p>\n

As that in itself is hardly a positive attribute, it is relevant to understand the position of amputees in society, their individual and collective role, in order to see how this is a very ableist and thus derogatory way to formulate the attribute of ignorant or lazy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Can you open the zipper of my pants please? – Why, do you need to go to the bathroom? – No… (from [link<\/a>])<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

The origin of saying that “someone is an armless John” seems to be a war time or post-war time era, when people that lost one or two arms were exempted from working or fighting. As that, it directly, literally, denotes lazy or ignorant people as “armless” because armless people were (in the history of this epithet’s origin) meant in a literal sense, they were the name-giver, directly, for the connotation of laziness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
From: Toy Art http:\/\/sucupirama.blogspot.com\/2010\/03\/toy-art-joao-sem-braco.html<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As that, this is not<\/em> a metaphor: a metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable<\/em>. Typical metaphor examples [link<\/a>] are “I am boiling<\/em> <\/a>mad” (whereas the body temperature still does not exceed 38 deg C, and no liquids are vaporized); “war is the mother<\/em> <\/a>of all battles” (whereas war is not a biological female parent of a battle). Here, a stereotypically perceived inability to act or work was literally<\/em> attached to loss of an arm or arms in form of a generalized attribution. Then, that negative attribution is used to denote people that appear to be<\/em> similarly restricted in a less structural or anatomical but more functional way. Even if they are not similarly restricted, linguistic microaggression pushes this perception towards them, whereas the application of such an epithet generally constitutes a form of micro-hysteria, micro-exaggeration or micro-dramatisation: the person accused of being an “armless John” does not really<\/em> lack arms.<\/p>\n

What happens with the use of the epithet “armless John” for lazy people is therefore similar to calling a person that does not reflect or think sufficiently a “retard” [link<\/a>]: the term “retard” is also not<\/em> a metaphor, but a similarly constructed and related epithet. It is considered highly offensive. More examples of undoubtedly similarly highly offensive significance with an analog linguistic construction are “blonde moment” [link<\/a>], “gay shit” [link<\/a>], “crippled midget” [link<\/a>] or “lame ass” [link<\/a>].<\/p>\n

So in other words, the origin of a class of epithets, to which “armless John” belongs, appears to always start with a group of people whose fixed, aspect related, sexuality related, illness related or condition related attribution is stereotypically connotated, and the resulting epithet then is applied more freely to any situation or person that happens to be broadely or crudely perceived to fall under some criteria of the originating concept. Broad application of terms such as insane, crazy or lame are no less ableist [link<\/a>].<\/p>\n