[mig39]

Really interesting work. I love the different models of how a fly moves around. This jumped out at me, though:

>If we take a look at the animation now, we can see the flies look slightly more realistic (if not still a bit spazzy)

Is "spazzy" a word that's used in different regional dialects of English as a term to just mean jittery? In most of the places I've lived, it's an offensive word.

[sp332]

I remember thinking that the UK has a much more negative connotation for "spastic" than the US. In the US it's still pejorative but something you could say casually.

[rossdavidh]

"Spazzy" or "spastic" is not especially offensive in the US, although I suppose given our ever-escalating sensitivity it soon will be. It mostly just implies "given to spasms", which I suppose is the origin. More generally, it implies not terribly well-organized in behavior. A person might say it of their own behavior without meaning anything exceptionally bad.

[morelisp]

It has been offensive in the US since the 90s. It just gets used anyway anytime there's some "anti-PC" movement, along with "gay" to mean "bad", the r word, sudden spikes in the use of "niggardly", and so on. Like those, its offensiveness does not come from offense taken by the person/thing it is proximately describing.

[Slump]

I've only heard it used as a synonym to "jittery" or hyper-active in my region of the states (mid-west). Good to know it's considered offensive in places, not that I really use the word. I had a colleague in school that had the nickname of "spaz". Mostly it was used ironically because they were super laid back all the time.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/spaz

Seems like it is indeed much more offensive in the UK. I've never heard it used to mean "stupid" or "incompetent" in America. Here, it describes someone who might be scatterbrained, unorganized, eccentric, and a bit hyperactive or frenetic, but not necessarily unintelligent - you might describe your professor as "a bit of a spaz" without anyone taking offense, though you probably wouldn't say it to their face.