My younger sister has severe cerebral palsy and has the mental capacity of a toddler even though she’s physically 24 but I still use the term, though not as often as I did in my childhood and teens. I’m more apt to say “dumb” instead now.
In my experience, retard/retarded has always been an insult, so it doesn’t make sense to me why it’s neutral to call developmentally-disabled Steve retarded but horribly offensive if Cody calls Kyle a retard for skating blindfolded down the 405.
Thanks for starting this thread. I was hesitant to bring it up, but I find it offensive, too. I agree with Leaffan.
Except for the** Leaf fan** part. Jeez, you guys are hard core eternal optimists.
I think it’s just a passe term. Remember when it was okay to call third world nations ‘backward’? And now it’s ‘emerging’. So I’d say you should call slow people emerging.
Well, the thing is, the definitions of moron and idiot, even if originally specifically denoting a type of mental deficiency, have been “officially” widened to encompass people who make stupid decisions in general, while “retarded” is still strictly slang when it comes to that. I checked a couple online dictionaries on that one, so I’m sure someone will find the source I didn’t bother to look up.
So, yeah, in my opinion, it’s offensive, and when my students use that word, or the word gay, or, when it was fashionable, Mencia’s “dee-dee-dee” crap, I call them on it, same as I would if they use a racially sensitive term. Nobody gets a detention or anything, but I tell them it’s rude.
I use the word. I never use it to refer to the devolopmentally challenged, because it is my understanding that the word has fallen out of use in that context.
I use the word. I think people get too offended by words. Also, retarded really sounds like what it means IMO. “Re-todd-ed” is fun too.
Thanks for bringing this up, Hazle Weatherfield. I have been appalled by the frequency with which the word “retarded” has shown up on this board lately. It is offensive and childish in the extreme. I find it astonishing that a word that I last heard bandied about freely as an insult back when I was in fourth or fifth grade (a LOOOONG time ago) has resurfaced both in common use and on a board where people claim to take pride in fighting ignorance in particular and engaging in intelligent discourse.
The developmentally disabled people I have known (I worked at an A.H.R.C. group home for a while–and, yes, I DO know what A.H.R.C. stands for) absolutely HATED the word “retarded,” no matter how it was applied, because they KNEW it was commonly preceived as perjorative. The fact that it was once accepted as a clinical term does not change the fact that it should not be tossed around as an insult, any more than the word “gay” should be used as an insult just because it is acceptable when used in proper context.
I know this is a bit of a non-sequiter, but once upon a time, once upon a place, the dreaded “N-Word” was considered unremarkable. That doesn’t mean that it is okay to use it now.
As for the words “moron” and “idiot,” they’re not wonderful, but their original clinical meanings have fallen so far from common use that they have largely lost their sting. Maybe someday the word “retarded” will be similarly de-fanged by time, but that day has not yet come.
Finally, I do realize that keeping track of all the different words which people find offensive seems like a full-time job sometimes, and I sympathize with people who get frustrated with the whole thing. I get extremely frustrated with it myself. I have never been good at saying the right thing, and I was raised by a father who used an astonishing range of insulting names for a wide range of racial and ethnic groups, and who angrily asserted his right to do so whenever challenged. (It will surprise no one to learn that this practice made an otherwise intelligent man seem petty, vulgar, ignorant and small.) Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear to me that the well-intentioned and reasonably well-informed among us should at least take our best shot at not being needlessly insulting and insensitive whenever possible. In local parlance, it’s called not being a jerk.
Huh?
ETA: Shit , never mind. I get it. What a “retard” I am, eh?
Oh, I don’t know. I’m a Canucks fan. I think that puts me a lot lower on the “smart” scale, hockey-fan-wise. At least the Leafs had some glory once.
We just get our hopes up and then . . . they lose again.
Does it count as offensive if we say it like “wee TAHR ded”? 
*Tenar said:
(I worked at an A.H.R.C. group home for a while–and, yes, I DO know what A.H.R.C. stands for)
I know this is a bit of a non-sequiter, but once upon a time, once upon a place, the dreaded “N-Word” was considered unremarkable. That doesn’t mean that it is okay to use it now.*
Another example is the NAACP… not likely that “colored people” would be a good descriptive word anymore.
I’m more of the school that as a society, we’ve become overly sensitive to the politically correct nature of our language. I can’t tell you how many times my teenage nephew uses the word “gay” for “lame”. Annoying, yes. Offensive, not so much.
Yeah, but you have Luongo. Good times are coming…
Not to mention that “retarded” and “retard” have another perfectly legitimate definition having to do with halting the progress of someone or something, which has been totally destroyed by taboo overgeneralization (an even worse offense than the destruction of the word “niggardly”, IMO). Of course, that’s the way the cookie crumbles…
Can I make a WAG here? I’m thinking it’s because “moron” and “idiot” have already come full circle, starting as technical/medical terms, then becoming offensive by association with an embarrassing condition, then becoming taboo, then becoming so far removed from their origins that they shed both their taboo status and their original clinical definitions. I bet “retard” will do the same eventually–you can already see “special” roaring into the final stage, IMO.
I’ve actually flipped on this issue. I used to be extremely sensitive to the word, and hated whenever anyone used it in my presence. I used to work with a woman whose part time job was helping the disabled, and she would call them “retarded”, in a belittling, denigrating sense. I wanted to slap her.
Somewhere along the line, my sensitivity stopped. Maybe it was just due to overexposure; the word is definitely everywhere. Maybe it was the You Tube video where they get the woman to read the sign that says “I am Sofa King We Todd Did”. Couldn’t help but laugh my ass off at that one.
I now even find myself using it to describe senseless, frustrating situations. I would still be offended if someone called a mentally disabled person a retard, but other usage just doesn’t get under my skin anymore.
I’ve always felt it was offensive to call a mentally challenged person “re-tard,” but ok to call things retarded because the definition of the word does not denote anything/one specific. In other words, if something really has been hindered or impeded (or cause such action), it’s ok to say it’s retarded. That’s what it means. If we took out of usage every word that ever caused offense, we’d have to grunt. No, grunting is offensive. What about hand gestures? Those are even worse!
Still, I only use retarded among close friends who know me well. And I’d never use it to describe any person. Mostly just ineffective material objects and inane situations. (Inane…is that next on the list of thoughts I can’t have?)
I don’t see the equivalency with gay, because retard is moving (or has moved) away from being an acceptable term for people with mental disabilities. I don’t work in that field, so I guess I’m not too up on it, and am willing to stand corrected, but it seems like the calling someone mentally retarded who actually fits that clinical definition is still somewhat insulting. I was under the impression that mentally disabled or handicapped was more acceptable. Since it seems insulting to call mentally handicapped people retarded, I don’t understand why the word should be more associated with them than with a general insult.
If you call something gay as a pejorative it still seems offensive to me because there are people who are gay and call themselves gay, and don’t mean it as an insult. It’s like taking any harmless descriptor and using it as an insult. “You’re such a girl,” for example, or “This computer was built by Swedish engineers.” However, since calling anyone retarded is insulting, it seems more universally acceptable to my mind. Sort of an equal opportunity offender.
Mental Retardation/Mentally Retarded are still clinical diagnoses used in the field. It’s not considered insulting if applied correctly. “Mentally disabled” encompasses a host of possible diagnoses which include but are not exclusive to mental retardation.
I can turn the distributor on my truck and the timing will become retarded.
Is that okay?
On the other hand, I rarely use the word Moron, as more people are off than they are on.
In the movie Idiocracy, the hero goes to the future, and the (idiotic) doctor diagnoses him thusly: “Your shit’s all retarded and you talk like a fag.”
Anyway, it seems to me that the word (and to a similar extent “gay”) went through a phase when it was considered offensive, but is now so wide spread that people just need to get over it.
It sort of burst through the critical point where enough people used it that it couldn’t be offensive anymore.
Lately, I’ve been seeing “douche bag” thrown around WAY MORE than I used it, though.
My brother is retarded and I find usage of the term as a form a derision to be offensive. I have scolded both of my children about it. I’ve found that people use it to characterize behavior that none of the retarded people that I know would do.