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ArisKatsaris comments on Rationality Lessons Learned from Irrational Adventures in Romance - Less Wrong
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Hmm... I'd have guessed it was less about being a euphemism and more about English-speakers wanting to have a one-syllable word instead of a five-syllable one, much like "straight" is a one-syllable word for "heterosexual", without this meaning that hetero sex is "unmentionably disgusting".
Even from childhood we know that pain caused by deliberate insults often hurts more than physical fights. People should not seek to take offense where none was meant -- but when offense is meant, and you know it's meant, not being hurt is often harder than ignoring a merely stepped-upon toe. A deliberate insult can linger all day in your mind when a toe is soon forgotten.
We already have more one syllable euphemisms for male homosexual than I can shake a stick at, each of which became a curse word, and each of which was supplanted by another euphemism. The most recent one previous to gay was "queer".
The same usually happens with other euphemisms for other undesirable characteristics - for example "retard".
Euphemisms do not work. If the thing being referred to was OK, we would not be looking for euphemisms, thus euphemising merely draws attention to the fact that the thing being referred to is not OK.
Supporting evidence: American English speakers weren't even content with a two syllable word meaning that homo sex is "unmentionably disgusting", and it's been shortened to one syllable.
But the original word was "queer"... which is now not a curse after having been reclaimed.
On a tangential note, this usage of "reclaim" has always bothered me. "Queer" didn't start out with positive or neutral connotations. It has not been reclaimed by the GLBT movement, it has been appropriated. Reclamation denotes previous ownership, something that simply doesn't apply when you look at the historical relationship between the words that are being "reclaimed" and the groups that are claiming them, but it's chosen for its connotations of legitimacy, since people are less likely to object to your taking back what's rightfully yours.
I find amusing the notion of bigots launching a campaign to reclaim "queer" as an insult.
There were lots of words before queer.
I can only imagine how Roy Cohn felt during the Army-McCarthy hearings when Joseph Welch quipped that "a pixie is a close relative of a fairy"...
Once again guessing, I'd say that "queer" and "bent" were both at a time abandoned by the gay community (even though "bent' is of course the actual counterpart of "straight") because of the negative connotations of weirdness in the former case, and something that's not in its proper shape in the latter. "Gay" persisted because it was the first name whose alternate connotations were positive (being merry/carefree).
I don't know why "queer" became acceptable to be reclaimed again, but I'm wondering whether it's because "weird" is not really seen as a bad thing anymore -- "geek" has also become a badge of honor after all, though it once used to be an insulting word.
Geek was actually the specific term for a carnival entertainer who bites the heads off of live chickens, before it became a generic term of abuse, before it became a specific term for someone who is passionate about a particular interest.
I may never think of Best Buy's tech support department the same way again...
Also possibly because the original meaning of "weird" has become lost, or at least outmoded, as a result of tarnishing by association with the slur. Nowadays, high school and college literature professors have to preface discussions of Moby-Dick with a disclaimer to the effect that the passage
has nothing to do with sexuality at all.
(Melville knew what he liked, I guess.)
--Moby Dick
That makes sense.
But very rarely is someone in trouble for making a deliberate insult. When people get in trouble for being politically incorrect, they are accused of wrongthink, not intentionally insulting any specific identifiable person.
"Wrongthink" is oldspeak. Say 'ungoodthink'.
Also, I'm curious whether you think your assertion holds in cases where an activist organization of (Group X) is the entity that accuses a speaker of political incorrectness towards Group X.