Some of us remember when “retarded” was used seriously–to describe the kids with mental disabilities. Most of use would not used the word casually.
“Idiot”, “imbecile” & “moron” once had clinical meanings, but that was long ago. So they are acceptable. Anyone can expand their vocabulary in order to avoid “retarded.”
Unless they are a dumbass…
Its no big deal to stop saying “retarded” but it’s water down a well at the end if the day. It’s pretty much axiomatic that any clinical word used to describe relative mental inability will soon become pejorative and synonymous with “stupid”. It’s hopeless trying to keep clinical words clinical. You can’t.
Just look at “special” which followed the same pattern – and who can forget the briefly popular "otherly abled ". Both of which became pejorative within minutes of their coinage.
I don’t. And obviously at this point you can claim anything. But you mentioned somebody else who has a special needs person in their family and opposes the use of the word retarded. So it would have been natural for you to mention your similar situation at that point in your counterargument if it were the case.
And does it bother you when people do that?
I’m not Jewish. It’s pointless for me to say I don’t mind when people talk about jewing somebody out of some money. Just as it’s pointless for me to say I don’t care if Washington calls its team the Redskins. Or for me to say that hearing a adult black man being called boy or an adult woman being called girl doesn’t offend me. Because none of these things demean me. So I don’t have the right to waive them off as unimportant. Nobody has the right to tell some other group that they should just suck it up and live with it. Because it’s them and not you who has to deal with being demeaned.
Maybe in an eye rolling way. Does it hurt my feelings? I can honestly say it does not. I realize I can’t speak for anyone but me, but then again I wasn’t trying to. It just seemed like you were implying I’d never suffered slurs so I was just sharing my experience.
Sure they do; it’s called freedom of expression. Luckily that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just responding to the OP and saying that while I don’t think it’s cool to use someone’s disability as a term of insult I don’t think “retarded” or any other slurs for that matter should be banned.
C’mon you guys. Quit bein a coupla spazes.
My brother, for a brief while, would sneer at something stupid and say, “That is so fucking developmentally delayed!”
Which, y’know, expresses frustration with the euphemism treadmill, and also kind of misses the point. The point being that it’s legit to say that some things are too stupid to live, but when you do so by comparing them to folks with Down’s Syndrome, the comparison is entirely unfair to folks with Down’s Syndrome.
“Idiot” and “imbecile” have not, to the best of my knowledge, been used as clinical terms for anyone in half a century. They’re safe to use, because there’s no analogy being drawn in anyone’s mind to people with actual mental disabilities. “Retarded” was part of federal law as recently as 2015, and while it’s made its way out the door, it’s still pretty fresh in people’s minds; using the term brings the analogy to the forefront. Give it a half-century, and I suspect “retarded” won’t be any more problematic than “idiotic.”
I find it offensive as does the Special Olympics. I don’t use it nor have I ever let my kids. Frankly, I find people that cringe at the N word or gay pejoratives, but use the word retarded as an insult to be huge hypocrites.
“Retard” is one of those words that carries some baggage for me. It was practically my nickname when I was mired in my most awkward developmental stage, and I flashback to those days whenever I hear the word.
A few years ago, though, I was trying to teach a coworker how to do something on the computer. We were joking around and I was ragging on him for not learning fast enough. In my attempt to be humorous, I used the r-word. Another coworker expressed disapproval and I swiftly apologized. Later I found out that her sister is developmental delayed.
So now I always try to use “flickted.” This was also one of my nicknames, but it’s not as loaded as “retarded”.
So, this is the latest iteration of “I should get to decide what other people find offensive”?
That usually works so well.
Whenever you feel the urge to say “that’s so retarded” or “that’s so gay,” just say that’s so Raven" instead.
If you mean an actual law making it illegal to call somebody retarded than, yes, I would oppose that. Such a law would clearly be unconstitutional.
But who’s talking about that? The campaign that’s being discussed here is not about laws being proposed. We’re talking about social pressure. Facebook or a local DJ do not have the power to have anyone arrested.
I recently used retarded in a sentence twice, in public no less.
“We are socially retarded, functionally retarded creatures, held back by our own deeply flawed brains.” Or something close to that. Of course some people get offended at the use of retarded in that context and to those people I say “Are you fucking retarded?” ok I don’t say that last bit, but I kinda think it. because if I said that they would have a good reason to be offended. My original statement was perfectly pc. I was not referring to the delayed mental capacity of an individual, I was referring to the entire human race and our messed up brains not working they way our messed up brains think they work.
and yeah euphemism treadmill anyone?
My daughter is autistic. I admit to having a preference for her never hearing that word, particularly directed at her. Being an adult, however, I can understand nuance well enough to understand the intention of the people I speak to. And, really, on my list of things about her future I worry about, this is pretty damn far down the list. But then again, if she were to come home one day sobbing because she’d been bullied, my feelings might intensify just a bit.
It’s kinda that way with any kind of humor or generally informal talk isn’t it? Using the OP as an example, “retard(ed)” is such a heavily loaded term that it can really be effective at getting a point across. Same goes with other words we all know but don’t need to mention. The trick is to know your audience (intended and collateral), and to not get habituated to the loaded words so they slip out when they shouldn’t.
So the objection is that it’s politically incorrect to the use the term? In other words, if social pressure builds to a certain level, things change. the OP doesn’t like being told by “them” what to say, do or how to act.
Pretty sure that’s how human society has worked for as long as there has been human society. The “nice” thing about living in this particular time and place, assuming the OP lives in the US, one can choose to ignore the social pressure and act in whatever way you choose, so long as you don’t actually hurt yourself or others.
You might want to work on the OP - I can’t actually tell what discussion you wanted to have. The right to use the word, the right to ignore social pressure, the need to teach everyone not to be mean to others, the stupidity of political correctness… it mostly read as a screed on wanting to use the word “retard”.
Of course it’s politically incorrect to use the word “retard.”
It doesn’t mean we should throw people in jail for using it.
And we won’t. We’ll let the bleeding-heart libnuts continue to whine and go on with our retarded lives.
Interesting, I stand corrected.
Had not heard this term before; so you have educated me further!
Yes, this is extreme, especially since it is an English word appropriate in a variety contexts. It is really only with “mentally” that it necessarily referring to the “mentally retarded.” The fact that people use it as pejorative shorthand for “mentally retarded” shouldn’t result in the word being cast out of the English language.
I remembered when his happen , people that had Down Syndrome fought to have this happen
http://www.msaaidd.org/pr1-20061129.htm
But developmentaly delayed can mean that someone will catch up. It’s a description more than a diagnosis.
And even if the causes cannot be reversed many people with some developmental delays will catch up, even if someone does not walk or speak at the expected age it does not mean they will never walk or speak whether it takes recognising the cause, like deafness for example, or surgery, physiotherapy or just time.