Am currently writing a steampunk story involving people with mechanical limbs whom are seen as lesser in society. However I am having trouble thinking of a slur for people without mechanical limbs to call them. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you (Oops, posted in wrong thread by mistake. I am very sorry)
Anything that would emphasize their differentness and dehumanize them. Synthetics, automatons, mechs, inorganics, metals. Since it's steampunk I'm guessing their prosthetics are like, copper or brass, so referring to individuals as copper-legs and brass-arms, while a little clunky, could work. Same for something like 'steam-powereds' if their robot parts are, y'know, steam-powered (I'm picturing the Monopoly guy going "those dang steam-powereds are ruining the neighborhood!" in a silly old-timey accent, hahah). Slurs typically work by erasing/ignoring similarities between groups and treating the differences as if they're the only thing about the other group that exists, so I'd focus on the mechanical limbs or whatever caused most of these people to lose their original bits - maybe if it's a certain class of people who're mostly losing limbs (hard laborer or soldiers, say), so something about that.
Many ethnic slurs are shortened versions of a fuller, more appropriate description of said persons ethnicity. So, if they are 'Synthetics', perhaps the derogatory term would be 'Synths'. 'Mechs' might be good, perhaps being short for mechanical. 'Steamers' sounds nice, but it's probably a bit too on-the-nose for steampunk.
I really like Steamers. While it is a bit obvious it makes sense as cyborgs often cannot afford to buy filters to stop them breathing the pollution created by the various factories.
