Like it or abominate it , academia in the media years has to occasionally toe the stock between staying relevant and being accessible to the great unwashed outside the academic bubble . However , one ingenuous attack to come in a bit of pop culture into their study has landed two researchers in a blot of worry .
Angela Willey and Banu Subramaniamrecently published an apologyfor using the word “ derpy ” in their commentary report after other academic accuse them of using “ ableist smirch ” .
Their article " Fighting the Derpy Science of Sexuality,“published in the journalArchives of Sexual Behaviorin April 2016 , was a commentary on biological research into sexuality , which put forward “ biological research marches on in its derpy ways . ”
Ina response to the comment , fellow scholars Sari van Anders and Zach Schudson charge them of being disparaging towards disabled people : “ These writer alas use an ableist slur in their commentary title and content . ”
Willey and Subramaniam responded with an apology on July 7 : " The word ' derpy ' was introduce to us as a pop - cultural term that mean believing in something despite the fact that it has been disproven … As it turn out , the term ' derpy ' has also been appropriated as an ablist slur . We regret our negligence in not visualise that out before the Commentary was published . That in our reach to find sententious and accessible spoken communication that destabilise automatic epistemic authority we grasped a term whose utilisation is deeply implicated in ablist white supremacist legacies of the science of intelligence oddly mirrors one breaker point of our Commentary . ”
Their original paper uses the definition of the word " derpy " from an article inThe New York Timesbyeconomist Paul Krugman . Krugman explains : “ Derp is a term take up from the animated cartoon “ South Park ” that has reach wide currency among hoi polloi I talk to , because it ’s utilitarian shorthand for an all - too - obvious feature of the modern rational landscape painting : people who keep saying the same thing no matter how much evidence accumulates that it ’s completely wrong . ”
While we ’re not here to discuss the finer subtleties and societal history of the word “ derpy ” , most consider the Son a harmless 21st - century rehash of the 1990 ’s staple “ duhhh ” , although the terminus has also been used to mock people with intellectual disabilities . As the editor program of theArchives of Sexual Behaviornotes : “ For the concerned reader , I suggest that you GOOGLE ' Is the word derpy offensive ? ' and draw your own conclusions . ”
[ H / T : Discover Magazine ]
