Here are three words that would help media and society think more carefully about difficult cases involving slurs and disability: utter, use, and mention.

They don’t mean the same thing.

Someone who utters a word produces it. A person who is under anesthesia, whose brain is stimulated by a neurosurgeon, might utter the word “stupid.” But that doesn’t mean they are calling anyone stupid. They’ve just uttered the word, without intending to apply it to anyone.

Someone who uses a word applies it. Imagine a person, not under anesthesia, who says to someone else, “You’re stupid.” That person has uttered the word “stupid,” and they have also used the word. They’ve called the person “stupid.”

Someone who mentions a word utters it but doesn’t necessarily use (apply) it. If I overhear someone calling a person “stupid,” I might report that fact: “S called J ‘stupid.’” In fact, just by typing the word in this post, I’ve mentioned it. And I’ve produced it in print. But I haven’t used it for anyone.

These distinctions get messy, and philosophers and linguists have a lot to say about them. But I think we can see that a person needn’t be charged with using an insult or a slur if they have merely uttered it when a surgeon stimulates their brain. That doesn’t mean that people who hear the word won’t have defensible, rational responses, given the deep associations we have with words. And it doesn’t mean there aren’t questions about the situations leading to these utterances, what to do once they’ve happenened, and so on.

But, in my view, someone whose brain produces an utterance that isn’t a use or a mention shouldn’t be characterized as “using a slur,” because that already assumes, or at least strongly suggests, moral responsibility.