Dear colleagues,

who is a spaz and how do you pronounce it?

What does it mean as a verb? For example, "Why are you spazzing out?"

Thanx! 

When someone has spasms (involuntary muscular contractions), someone ( a bully or something) might call them a spaz. 

Using it metaphorically it means that someone loses control over situation and freaks out, or something similar. 

Pronounced as you see it with a z sound, it �s short for spastic (and sometimes spasm).

 

Before the term cerebral palsy was used, people with this condition were called spastic and they would often attend a dedicated spastic centre. If one of these children went to a mainstream school, they were often placed in a special class one or two days a week, the spastic class.  It became common to call these students spazzes. The use of spazz in this context today is highly offensive and totally unacceptable. I never hear it in this context anymore.

 

On the other hand, spazz is used by the younger generation to mean something totally different. I think it �s more commonly used in US English.  You can see a definition at the urban dictionary

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Jayho