Is it ever acceptable to use the term "retarded" when referring to a dumb person?

This thread has come about due to this previous thread in MPSIMS

Computer Retarded People Make Me Cry

Some are suggesting that “retarded” is a slur and should not be used, even when someone is intellectually slow at something. Others are saying that it is OK to use sometimes, because the word is not inherently negative or a slur and can refer to people who are behind or slow to learn something.

Anyway, what do you think? Is the word “retarded” ever acceptable?

Even though ‘retarded’ is a perfectly good word, many people in the special needs community (or their family and friends) have decided that they don’t want to be referred to as such, and I completely respect that.

But I don’t see why we can’t use it for people or situations or things that aren’t actually mentally challenged. So, I do still use it to refer to dumb stuff, including when I do dumb stuff.

If you’re not in the presence of anyone that would be offended, it’s fine. If you are, it depends on whether or not you care if they’re offended. It’s not rocket science. Words are magical. It’s not like if you say “retarded”, then somewhere in the world, a retarded kid gets punched in the gut.

As a kid, this was a word I was repeatedly told to not use. As an adult I still do not use it unless I’m specifically talking about engine timing or some other technical use of the word.

To my ears, it is very pejorative in nature and makes the user sound like a 12 year old.

Chessic, I agree that one should try not to offend. Why sling the word around if you know a mentally challenged child is sitting right there.

I certainly won’t use it in front of a disabled child. Hell, I don’t even use it to refer to disabled children. Only people who are acting stupid.

I won’t stop using it, however. If you ask me not to use it around you I will do my very best not to but that certainly doesn’t mean I will stop using it, or even that I agree with you - I am just not using it around you to be polite.

It’s a word with a perfectly useful meaning. If you are going to take it personally, that’s your problem and not mine. And there are much worse words slung around the interwebs.

To me, it’s like the word “Negro,” which is to say, an old word that back in The Day was either positive, negative, or neutral depending on context, but has since become offensive.

Parents with retarded/mentally challenged/differently abled kids want to have it both ways. They’ve mostly abandoned retarded as a medical diagnosis because it’s used as a synonym for stupid, but they also turn around and act all offended when someone uses retarded as a synonym for stupid.

You can’t have a monopoly on words like that.

After all, where are the people defending idiot, moron, cretin, feeble-minded and imbecile? All of which started as medical disgnosises of people with low intelligence.

This, pretty much.

I don’t use it in reference to a person. I might say “you used too much salt in your bread dough and it retarded the yeast; that’s why it didn’t rise.” Anyone who is offended by that is the same person who is going to be offended by the proper use of words like niggardly, which I don’t use to bait people.

Actually no, I don’t know about the rest but:

idiot is from Greek. Initially it meant someone who lost his right to vote by not voting enough times; that is, someone who, while legally a part of the ruling elite, lost his privileges through lack of their use.

imbecile is from Latin. It meant someone unable to decide for himself and represent himself in a Roman court of law, such as slaves, foreigners, women, children or the senile.

As for using the term “retarded” when referring to someone who’s behind expected ability - I think the analogy with “Negro” is apt; it’s a word that’s expected to not be used anymore in any meaning, because it’s been replaced with others, but these others will be replaced in turn. The same people who are now offended by retarded, not just when applied to a human being, but when they see it on a box of flares (meaning “delayed” - and note that I’m talking about an actual example but not about the specific individuals whose complaints prompted this thread, which I expect to be smarter than that), are also offended by disabled, and will be offended by developmentally delayed at some point. Whether this is “right” or “wrong”, it’s something I observe happening in certain cultures, much less in some others, and which I filed a long time ago under “stuff some people do”.

It can be used a pejorative, but “retarded” is a based on a technical use of the word. What is retarded timing? What is a retarded mind? Same thing.

Clearly I try not to offend people intentionally. I’ve taken to calling black people “darkies” in Spanish because I don’t want them to think I’m saying “negro.” Of course describing that in English sounds absolutely horrible, but in Spanish it’s not a big deal.

I was the original person who suggested it was a slur…because the thread title itself makes me cry and not just in a figurative way.

The way I see it, when it’s used in that way it does demean people. Often the people within our society who are not only the least deserving to made into the butt of a joke, but are sometimes the least armed to defend against such jibs. Whether we like it or not, we are examples to others around us and us using the word like that validates others to follow your lead.

For the record I don’t like “short bus” jokes either, for all the same reasons.

Sigmagirl, the way you used it is fine. It is a word with meaning and not offensive.

Exactly. They’re like “hey! It’s offensive when you use a word to mean ‘stupid’ when it actually means ‘like my child’. But don’t use it for my child either.” It makes no sense. Is your kid retarded or not? If he is, then I’ll just call your kid retarded and not stupid people. If he’s not (i.e. if he’s “special needs”), then I’m free to call stupid people retards.

I don’t like the analogy to other words like handicapped or negro. Those words describe people that have certain characteristics that perhaps don’t apply to the people in reality. For example, calling someone “a negro” today makes them sound childish or incapable, which is inaccurate of actual black people. But “retarded” is separate. There’s no amount of political correctness that’s going to make mentally handicapped people smart. It’s a rule of cruel universe we live in. And it’s degrading to call someone else “stupid” or “like a stupid person”. So no matter what words you want to make up for this condition or that condition, the word for autistic/down kids will always be used as an insult.

Can anyone ever see that changing?

That’s great and all, but it doesn’t change the fact that both words were used and defined by the medical community to describe people who are today known as mentally handicapped.

If you really think that people are, like, pointing at your kid/relative/friend and laughing as they say it, then I have a hard time getting too worked up over you being offended.

I used to refer to my father as being ‘emotionally retarded from years of alcohol abuse’.

Totally accurate and a little demeaning at the same time.

I have a cousin who is mentally retarded. We have always referred to him as so, as it was his diagnosis at birth. Seeing the word printed on paper does not bring me to tears, even though I love him and be very upset if anyone insulted him in anyway. That is hypersensitivity and the issue is with the weeper not the writer, in my opinion. Almost always, I’m a little suspect of someone who’s offended on behalf of another.

This is different than negro, though, because negro didn’t start out as a word that acurately describes black people, and then morph into a word that describes something else.

That is what happened with ‘retarded’. At first, it was accepted as a word to describe the mentally challenged, and then it was rejected by special needs advocates. Now, it basically means when a person who is not special needs does something dumb. Apples and oranges.

Would everyone be as mad if he had said “dumb” or “lame”

or is retarded the only handicap it is not ok to mock?

Well, yes. It demeans people who are being stupid. “Stupid” is also demeaning, of course. Some things deserve to be demeaned.

Frankly, I can’t think of a better word to convey “That’s the kind of thing that someone of normal intelligence has no excuse to think/say/do.” It’s not a slam on people who are not of normal intelligence, unless you’re arguing that we shouldn’t apply different standards of behavior to or acknowledge the limitations of people who are actually retarded, which is stupid.