# Is it offensive to call someone a "tard" or a "retard"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 15, 2016, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270 "2016-01-15T20:19:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/41 "2016-01-16T05:02:20Z")
Sorry to post again, but I want to clarify that when I hear people whom I don’t really know use the term, I think they’re numpties. If someone I know and like / respect says it, like anything else, I know them and know their heart and so understand they are not being jerks. I’m looking at you, my respected and liked Doper friends 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/42 "2016-01-16T05:11:00Z")
> [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > **Robert163** , thank you for clarifying. I may be misremembering because I’m old! (born in '66) but it doesn’t \*feel \*to me like it’s been that long since “mentally retarded” was a valid, non offensive term, bit I’ll take you’re word for it. OK, well, at least we can agree it has that connotation now, I think. > [@](#): > > It would take too long for me to expound on why I don’t think society is necessarily better off being more PC; it’s not that cut and dried, IMO. I do think it’s always better that people be kinder if they know that their choice of words can hurt someone else. And I’m just talking on a person to person level; not on the level where people of power oppress others. Obviously that is a huge problem and not what my response or what this thread is about. Why do you think too much PC is bad? It creates an environment where people are stifled and afraid to “speak naturally”. You can see lots of videos of kids on college campuses screaming about the use of some word they don’t like… but isin’t that kind of what kids do in college, protest stuff? Why do you think too much PC is bad? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/43 "2016-01-16T05:33:38Z")
Last time this came up, I joked about having a vested interest in this. But, for some reason, I’m in less of a joking mood this time. It may be even the same reason the OP thought to start to this thread. My take? Of course the words are offensive. That’s why they say them. The point is to offend. It is an insult, after all. The question is how offensive. At this point, it’s just a little bit shy of “faggot” and “nigger”–and that’s only because you could conceivably still not know the issue. The mentally handicapped community has asked people to stop saying it, making a concerted campaign over it. Hell, I just saw on my very Right-leaning Facebook someone posting a 2012 story about a man with Down Syndrome calling out Anne Coulter for using it, and pretty much all likes. When that happens–when there is a concentrated effort by a minority to get people to stop saying a word that is grossly offensive to them, the times up. The fact that the group in question told us it was grossly offensive and asked us to stop is why we stopped saying those other words. Any argument about censorship of the word “retard” must also apply to “nigger,” “faggot,” “kike”, “spic,” “chink” or whatever. * * * On this board, actually using those words (and not mentioning them) can get you in trouble. So likewise should “retarded” and “tard.” If this were some super freedom of speech board, maybe it would make more sense. Not that I hold out hope any time soon. People say this is a liberal message board, but it’s remarkably conservative in some areas. I still marvel that the whole “jokes about women having sex” rule made it through. Normally, if it was okay in 2002, it’s okay now. And this isn’t a lecture. It’s just me sharing my opinion. And I’m not being holier than thou. I used to use “retarded” all the time. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/44 "2016-01-16T06:14:16Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > Me, I’m seriously put off by the word on this messageboard. Not only is it offensive, it comes off as juvenile and beneath the standard of intelligent invective around here. I’ve been poking around and finding, of course, that very many disagree with me. I’m curious about the numbers. > > If I were emperor of the Straight Dope, I’d ban the term here outright, just as racial slurs and terms of hate speech are banned. You? In the pit all language should be acceptable. The whole point of what the “people” in the pit do is to be offensive. Why have arbitrary tiers of douchebaggery? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/45 "2016-01-16T06:25:20Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Last time this came up, I joked about having a vested interest in this. But, for some reason, I’m in less of a joking mood this time. It may be even the same reason the OP thought to start to this thread. > > My take? Of course the words are offensive. That’s why they say them. The point is to offend. It is an insult, after all. > > The question is how offensive. At this point, it’s just a little bit shy of “faggot” and “nigger”–and that’s only because you could conceivably still not know the issue. The mentally handicapped community has asked people to stop saying it, making a concerted campaign over it. Hell, I just saw on my very Right-leaning Facebook someone posting a 2012 story about a man with Down Syndrome calling out Anne Coulter for using it, and pretty much all likes. > > When that happens–when there is a concentrated effort by a minority to get people to stop saying a word that is grossly offensive to them, the times up. The fact that the group in question told us it was grossly offensive and asked us to stop is why we stopped saying those other words. Any argument about censorship of the word “retard” must also apply to “nigger,” “faggot,” “kike”, “spic,” “chink” or whatever. > > * * * > > On this board, actually using those words (and not mentioning them) can get you in trouble. So likewise should “retarded” and “tard.” If this were some super freedom of speech board, maybe it would make more sense. > > Not that I hold out hope any time soon. People say this is a liberal message board, but it’s remarkably conservative in some areas. I still marvel that the whole “jokes about women having sex” rule made it through. Normally, if it was okay in 2002, it’s okay now. > > And this isn’t a lecture. It’s just me sharing my opinion. And I’m not being holier than thou. I used to use “retarded” all the time. Allowing the words to have that power allows too much power for those who are looking to be offended. I don’t want a world where an MLB owner in a private conversation with his mistress gets secretly recorded saying “player x’s contract is retarded.” and then due to mass hysteria over the word forced to sell his team. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/46 "2016-01-16T06:35:08Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Allowing the words to have that power allows too much power for those who are looking to be offended. could you please clarify what you mean by “looking to be offended”. > [@](#): > > I don’t want a world where an MLB owner in a private conversation with his mistress gets secretly recorded saying “player x’s contract is retarded.” and then due to mass hysteria over the word forced to sell his team. I don’t know anyone who wants that… where have you heard of such a thing? ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/47 "2016-01-16T06:37:03Z")
Even going back 50 years (yes, I’m old), it has always been juvenile - only used by those both young AND stupid; only since the advent of “Politically Correct” has it become offensive all by itself. c.f. niggardly, which was a perfectly good word. Because people who did NOT know what it meant, but nonetheless felt empowered to judge it, decided it SOUNDED like something else, it became taboo. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/48 "2016-01-16T06:45:09Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > could you please clarify what you mean by “looking to be offended”. > > I don’t know anyone who wants that… where have you heard of such a thing? Worrying about people who go out of their way to demonize someone for what is said on a secret tape is not a paranoid fantasy. That girl at Princeton who probably had an aneurysm over an email in support of the 1st amendment is another example. And the world where you can be forced to sell an asset because of a secret recording of a mere word does exist. Regardless of anyone’s desire for its existence. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/49 "2016-01-16T07:02:41Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Worrying about people who go out of their way to demonize someone for what is said on a secret tape is not a paranoid fantasy. That girl at Princeton who probably had an aneurysm over an email in support of the 1st amendment is another example. What example are you referring too? > [@](#): > > And the world where you can be forced to sell an asset because of a secret recording of a mere word does exist. Regardless of anyone’s desire for its existence. It’s not like he said 1 wrong thing then had to sell the team. Donald Sterling had to sell the clippers because he was a racist who used derogatory racist terminology on several occasions. This is not the type of person who should be deciding the salaries of black people who work/play for him. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/50 "2016-01-16T07:17:52Z")
The big point here is there is no Official Board of Political Correctness. Nobody has any power or authority to make pronouncements on what words people are allowed to say. People love to point out attempts at extreme political correctness. What they don’t say is those attempts get laughed at. People won’t stop using the word fish because PETA wants to call them sea-kittens. A call to avoid the use of a word is completely voluntary. Words only become taboo when the majority of people decide to stop using them. It’s just a social standard like any other. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/51 "2016-01-16T07:25:15Z")
'Tard or REtard are offensive. But to call somebody ‘intellectually retarded’ is not, Better though to label them as ‘intellectually disabled’ to avoid stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/52 "2016-01-16T07:28:35Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > 'Tard or REtard are offensive. > > But to call somebody ‘intellectually retarded’ is not, > > Better though to label them as ‘intellectually disabled’ to avoid stuff. Would you use the term “intellectually retarded”, referring to a 3rd party, in front of someone who you knew was actually mentally retarded? (I doubt you would). ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/53 "2016-01-16T08:33:05Z")
It’s offensive, not because it’s an outdated description of some human phenomenon into which someone’s trying to classify someone else, but because it’s meant to be offensive, and being offensive isn’t a particularly grown-up or civilised way to debate. Isn’t that the point? ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/54 "2016-01-16T09:10:21Z")
It’s an insult. Insults are supposed to be offensive, I mean, they are constructed to be that way. So, yeah. I don’t know why it should be either more or less repugnant than any other insult people use here. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/55 "2016-01-16T12:04:11Z")
It doesn’t offend me though I’m sure it offends some people. I would not use tard or retard in front of someone who I thought might take offense but don’t have a problem with it on these boards. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/56 "2016-01-16T12:09:27Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > It’s an insult. Insults are supposed to be offensive, I mean, they are constructed to be that way. So, yeah. > > I don’t know why it should be either more or less repugnant than any other insult people use here. Some insults are only offensive to the insulted party, e.g., “you motherfucker”. Other insults may be offensive to the insulted party AND whatever group of people the insulted party is being compared to, e.g., “retard”, “spastic” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/57 "2016-01-16T18:13:44Z")
A gentleman is someone who never hurts anyone’s feelings accidentally. If I hurt someone’s feelings, I do it on purpose and with bad intentions. Were I to call someone a retard in the hearing of a person who, unknown to me, had a retarded child, I would feel bad. It’s kind of a collateral damage situation. You shouldn’t use an indiscriminate weapon in a crowded room. Why use a hand grenade when you only want to harm one person? ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/58 "2016-01-16T18:29:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think the issue is that you’re taking a term that has a neutral meaning and turning it into a derogatory term. The fact that the term is derogatory then reflects back on the people who it was neutrally applied to. > > Consider the term gay. In a neutral sense, it means somebody is homosexual. But you hear people using it as a general term of derision, as in “this homework is so gay.” The speaker is obviously not claiming that their homework is homosexual, they’re saying their homework is bad. But once you establish the connection gay=bad, it goes on to promote the idea that gay people ie homosexuals are bad people. > > The same thing can happen with the use of retarded as a general derogatory term. If you promote the use of retarded to mean something bad, it leads to the idea that retarded people are bad people. This. Thank you. I’m not always thrilled with PC hypersensitivity either, and don’t really have a problem with “retarded” as a descriptive term for a D.D. person, even though I know it’s not considered polite anymore. The problem is using the term as an insult when it also applies to a group of people who are not the intended target (just like “gay,” above) – but they catch quite a lot of the damage anyway. Not cool at all. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Lebodnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/fbc32d/32.png) [@Mr.Lebodnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Lebodnik)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/59 "2016-01-16T18:42:31Z")
“Mentally retarded” or simply “retarded” people are now described as “mentally challenged”. Which means the two formerly used terms have been freed up for other uses. Such as another way of saying stupid or dumb. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270/60 "2016-01-16T18:56:54Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > In the pit **all** language should be acceptable. The whole point of what the “people” in the pit do is to be offensive. Why have arbitrary tiers of douchebaggery? [emphasis mine] “Should be”, maybe (I disagree) but definitely not “is”. (It might be a fun experiment to test out the limits there sometime. Not really.) I’d like to see “tard” added to the rather long list of words which, if used as insults, are already completely forbidden here, even in the Pit. By the way, this isn’t censorship. It’s just house rules and I’m proposing an amendment to them. It shouldn’t be a hardship for most people. If you want to call someone [hateful racial slur] as a casual insult, you’re free to do that in lots of places. Not here, thank God and TPTB. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-offensive-to-call-someone-a-tard-or-a-retard/743270.md?page=4)