# 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:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/101 "2010-08-10T07:07:29Z")
It’s not a word I use and if I hear my daughter (10) or her friends using it, I ask them not to. I remind her of what it actually means. And I remind her she has an adopted uncle who is moderately “retarded” as a result of being locked in a closet and starved as a toddler AND a friend from school who is as a result of a birth injury. To use it to signify that someone or something is “stupid”, as it is used by the tween/teen crowd, IS, imo, a slur. Exactly in the same way using the word “gay” to indicate some negative characteristic is. My son’s high school has a tolerance club which hands out cards printed with “Did I just hear you say, 'that’s so gay?” and a long list of other words to use instead which actually MEAN what gay is being used to signify. Would be a great idea to have one for the word “retarded” as well, imo. Either use it to indicate someone who actually has a mental disability (retardation) or to indicate some other process which has been “retarded” (flames, yeast growth, whatever). Using it to indicate someone or thing which you consider “stupid” or a “moron” is improper and hurtful. Again, sort of like using “gay” to indicate a homosexual person OR a happy state of mind/environment, NOT something which is “lame”, “stupid”, “insipid” (where IS that damn card?:p) etc… Just my take on it. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/102 "2010-08-10T07:34:02Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > > [@nuggz](#): > > > > However, being offended by an _obvious_ use of the word that is NOT referencing actual developmentally delayed people, IS hyper-sensitivity. > > > > It reeks of insecurity. > > This is my feeling, too. I can’t help but get the impression that anybody who freaks out about the use of variations of the word retarded, when not being used to mock people who actually have disabilities, is actually ashamed of those disabilities. > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > I’m just surprised no one has noticed that a lot of these arguments could be used to make using the word “nigger” perfectly fine. > > Here’s the distinction, to me: > > Gay: Using this as a slur posits homosexuality (or anything other than sterotypical heterosexuality) as a bad thing. > Nigger: Using this as a slur posits being Black as a bad thing. > Retarded: Using this as a slur posits having a mental disability as being a bad thing. > > Being gay is not bad. Being Black is not bad. Having a mental disability is bad. It doesn’t made you a bad _person_, but it \*is \*a quality that none of us would seek to have, and I’m sure would all like to see cured completely. (I.e., if we were given the ability to make it so that every person with a mental disability immediately started functioning on a normal level, I’m sure we would do so.) So, again, the point remains that it isn’t the \*person \*that is being condemned, but the disability. The only way you’re going to be able to equate the word “retarded” with ones like “gay,” “fag,” “nigger,” etc., is if you try to argue that a mental disability is an admirable, or at least a neutral, quality. It IS the “person” being condemned…WTF? You can’t separate a PERSON’S sexuality or race or mental disability from their PERSONHOOD, as if it’s some distinct quality bearing no relation to THEM. :dubious: And who are you or anyone else to declare that having a mental disability is inherently “bad”? Consider that many have (and still do) consider being gay or black “bad”…and that due to discrimination and slurs from those with such attitudes, gays and blacks have experienced some less than desirable qualiity of life over the years. What about the idea that a PERSON who happens to be mentally disabled (something which cannot be “cured” anymore than gayness or blackness) lived in a society in which their condition, that aspect of their personhood, WAS treated as a “neutral quality” and not some awful, pitiable state and the touchpoint for slurs? It can even be argued that this aspect IS “admirable” in some ways (talk to the parents of a Down’s Syndrome child sometime if you doubt some see it this way). Bottom line, we are physical, mental beings and all the aspects you list are part and parcel of the beings who exhibit them. Impossible to distinguish between the person and the trait as you propose, and you are making an arguable judgement call by deciding which are “good” and which “bad”. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/103 "2010-08-10T08:14:15Z")
On the one hand, many people clearly are offended by using “retarded” where one might otherwise use “stupid”. In this sense, the word is undeniably offensive. On the other hand, I don’t particularly feel bad using the word in that manner, anymore than I would feel bad using “brain-damaged” to mean the same thing. On the gripping hand, it is the case that many mentally retarded people have been quite cruelly mocked, and terms such as “retard” and, for some, “retarded” have become so associated with this mocking to the point of being permanently tainted. The innocuous etymology hardly matters; it’s no different than the way any other slur becomes taboo through the associations it develops. On the other gripping hand, mental retardation is very much an undesirable trait; it is an extreme case of being incorrigibly stupid, to put it bluntly. How can the term not become a hyperbolic (and eventually mundane) insult, same as “lame” meaning crippled and “dumb” meaning mute? On the fifth hand, it hardly costs anything to just use another term anyway out of deference to those who are sensitive to it. So… I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/104 "2010-08-10T13:08:55Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > When somebody does something stupid, you call them retarded, and that’s an insult. Because doing something stupid deserves it. And retarded people are inherently stupid, so they do stupid things. > > Yet there’s no logical reason for a retarded person to feel slighted when one regular person says to another “you’re such a fucking retard” when they do something stupid? Even though the word “retard” is being used to mean “person who does something stupid and I am mocking them for it”? I’ve understood from the beginning that we don’t agree about this, but I can’t figure why you think I’ve missed your point. I hear you saying that you don’t think actually retarded people should be mocked for being retarded, and instead only regular-intelligence people should be mocked by comparison to retards. What it comes down to is that we agree what’s happening, only you’re saying nobody could ever be offended by it. That’s the part I don’t get. > > If it ever starts to be the case that in order to be mean to each other, people use as a slur some kind of characteristic that I possess, that’s going to be an insult to me. There is nothing illogical about that. Even if it’s something ridiculous - “don’t be such a beardy, you brown-eye fuck” - it’s going to be the case on some level that they’re using something about me as an insult. They’re making a judgment about my worth as a person (and yes, they are, indirectly, and there’s no escaping that), in order to slur somebody. If I’m offended by that, you can tell me to toughen up all you like, but what you cannot do is say that that makes no logical sense. I am _so_ going to use “beardy” as an insult from now on. 😃 you damn beardies can all brown-eye-off if you don’t like it ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/105 "2010-08-10T17:30:26Z")
ETA: Dammit, missed the page break. @ **Jimmy Chitwood** : If you think using a disability (in the sense of some deficit of function versus the standard for humans) to mock someone who is acting as though they had that deficiency is rude, tell me this: do you still call people blind, deaf, lame? IME people who get all hot and bothered about “retarded” have it segregated into its own special category, with no logical continuity with other disabilities. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/106 "2010-08-10T17:54:55Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#): > > To use it to signify that someone or something is “stupid”, as it is used by the tween/teen crowd, IS, imo, a slur. Exactly in the same way using the word “gay” to indicate some negative characteristic is. Did you read anything I’ve written? It is absolutely literally not the same. Retarded people \*are \*retarded. Gay people \*are not \*stupid. The former is tactless and rude _but true_; the latter is completely inaccurate. > [@InterestedObserver](#): > > It IS the “person” being condemned…WTF? You can’t separate a PERSON’S sexuality or race or mental disability from their PERSONHOOD, as if it’s some distinct quality bearing no relation to THEM. :dubious: You \*can \*condemn a quality, especially a negative one, without condemning the person. We do it all the time. Think of your mom. I bet there are things about her that you can’t stand, even if the two of you have a good relationship. Does condemning those aspects of her mean that you’re condemning her as a person? > [@](#): > > And who are you or anyone else to declare that having a mental disability is inherently “bad”? It means that you can’t function at a normal level. That’s bad. Being naturally stupid is not a good thing. Now, there are many people who are able to lead fairly normal lives, and there are many who have very happy, fulfilled, successful lives. But that doesn’t mean their disabilities are a good thing. I’ll pose you the same hypothetical I gave upthread. Would you encourage a pregnant woman to drink so that her baby is born with FAS? Would you congratulate someone on being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? > [@](#): > > It can even be argued that this aspect IS “admirable” in some ways (talk to the parents of a Down’s Syndrome child sometime if you doubt some see it this way). Many \*people \*with mental disabilities are admirable. I’ve known people with Down Syndrome whom I liked quite a bit. But their \*conditions \*are not admirable. Their \*conditions \*are apalling, and if there were a way to instantly restore them all to a normal level of function, I’d do it. > [@](#): > > Impossible to distinguish between the person and the trait as you propose, and you are making an arguable judgement call by deciding which are “good” and which “bad”. Since you seem to think a brain that functions sub-normally is great, I look forward to your reports of any attempts to effect such a disability for yourself. Perhaps you could try asphyxia–of course, it could be hard to balance between “enough to get brain damage” and “enough to kill you.” ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/107 "2010-08-10T19:11:33Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#): > > And who are you or anyone else to declare that having a mental disability is inherently “bad”? Gee, and here I thought that the word “disability” means “the lack of an ability.” Little did I know it’s actually a \*good \*thing to have! Yay for disabilities! Not being able to perform a normal function is such a beautiful thing! There’s nothing bad about that at all! ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/108 "2010-08-10T21:25:58Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > If you think using a disability (in the sense of some deficit of function versus the standard for humans) to mock someone who is acting as though they had that deficiency is rude, tell me this: do you still call people blind, deaf, lame? > > IME people who get all hot and bothered about “retarded” have it segregated into its own special category, with no logical continuity with other disabilities. I’m not really sure whether I use those things as slurs or not, but let’s just assume I do. Let’s say that I do it all the time. One, that doesn’t entitle me to determine whether or not other people can be offended by that, it just means I’m personally all right with offending people in one way and not all right with offending them in another particular way. Maybe I’m just a dick in general and say incredibly offensive things all the time; I’m not trying to hold myself up as the standard by which some kind of objective offense scale is calibrated. Two, yes, I do think there’s a difference between “lame” and “retarded.” I do think it’s an entirely different category; not least because brains aren’t analogous to legs or eyes or ears. It’s the difference I’ve been talking about. It hasn’t been part of my experience that the particular impairment of being lousy at seeing, for instance, comes with such a stigma attached that the very accusation can be a vicious insult. I’m completely useless without corrective lenses, and nobody’s ever dismissed me as a person for that. I don’t think a person with mental retardation has the same experience. I think it’s really obvious that s/he does not. To reiterate, in case I’m wandering from what my point in all this is, I understand why the use of retarded is convenient and attractive in describing things, and why a person using retarded could be doing so entirely without malice toward anybody, or even with malice toward one particular person of normal intelligence. I’m not trying to prove whether or not anybody else _should_. But I think it’s really shortsighted and often dishonest when people say that either they can’t understand why anybody would be offended, or that nobody else has any reason to be offended that might be grounded in rationality. ---
**Author:** ![pope\_hentai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/109 "2010-08-11T03:01:37Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#): > > My son’s high school has a tolerance club which hands out cards printed with “Did I just hear you say, 'that’s so gay?” and a long list of other words to use instead which actually MEAN what gay is being used to signify. You are joking, right? Tolerance club? I could see how that would have gone over when i went to school, mostly just laughing and calling them sissies, pussies, and faggots. But then again, we had a “special needs” class, so “special” was the perjorative of choice rather than “retard”. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264/110 "2010-08-11T14:54:37Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > One, that doesn’t entitle me to determine whether or not other people can be offended by that I don’t believe I’ve ever said that people \*can’t \*be offended by the use of “retarded” when not used to mock someone with an actual disability. I’ve just said that it’s \*logically inconsistent \*and, as such, they shouldn’t try to force others to change their language usage to accomodate their own personal bugaboos. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ever-acceptable-to-use-the-term-retarded-when-referring-to-a-dumb-person/549264.md?page=5)