# Is it ever acceptable to use the term "retarded" when referring to a dumb person? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 5, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264 "2010-08-05T14:02:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/1 "2010-08-05T14:02:11Z")
This thread has come about due to this previous thread in MPSIMS [Computer Retarded People Make Me Cry](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=573509) 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? ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/2 "2010-08-05T14:08:12Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/3 "2010-08-05T14:09:41Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/4 "2010-08-05T14:13:02Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/5 "2010-08-05T14:15:27Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/6 "2010-08-05T14:42:25Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/7 "2010-08-05T14:43:21Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/8 "2010-08-05T14:49:31Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/9 "2010-08-05T14:53:40Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > 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. This, pretty much. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/10 "2010-08-05T14:55:10Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/11 "2010-08-05T14:59:23Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > 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. 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”. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/12 "2010-08-05T15:08:18Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Tequila\_Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/41988e/32.png) [@Tequila\_Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tequila_Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/13 "2010-08-05T15:17:51Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/14 "2010-08-05T15:17:54Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > 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. 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? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/15 "2010-08-05T15:24:37Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > > > 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. > > Actually no, I don’t know about the rest but: > > idiot is from Greek… > > imbecile is from Latin… 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. [QUOTE=Wikipedia] > **[Idiot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot)** > > An idiot, in modern use, is a stupid or foolish person. > "Idiot" was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers. The term was gradually replaced by "profound mental retardation", which has since been replaced by other terms. Along with terms like moron, imbecile, retard and cretin, its use to describe people with ment... In 19th and early 20th century medicine and psychology, an “idiot” was a person with a very severe mental retardation. In the early 1900s, Dr. Henry H. Goddard proposed a classification system for mental retardation based on the Binet-Simon concept of mental age. Individuals with the lowest mental age level (less than three years) were identified as idiots; imbiciles (sic) had a mental age of three to 7 years., and morons had a mental age of seven to ten years.[7] IQ, or intelligence quotient, is determined by dividing a person’s mental age, as determined by standardized tests, by chronological age. The term “idiot” is sometimes used to refer to people having an IQ below 30.[8][9] [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/16 "2010-08-05T16:00:02Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/17 "2010-08-05T16:10:20Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/18 "2010-08-05T16:10:20Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/19 "2010-08-05T16:10:38Z")
Would everyone be as mad if he had said “dumb” or “lame” or is retarded the only handicap it is not ok to mock? ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/20 "2010-08-05T16:25:00Z")
> [@Tequila\_Mockingbird](#): > > The way I see it, when it’s used in that way it does demean people. 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. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264.md?page=2)