Don't say that's retarded, it hurts special kids feelings NOT ABOUT CALLING SPECIAL KIDS RETARDED

[BeeGeenie]

Some people call the mentally handicapped "Slow," which is supposed to be more "PC" than "Retarded."

But traditionally in English, Latinate words generally have a better connotation than Germanic words, so "retarded" should really be LESS offensive than "slow"... from a certain point of view.

 

[Dimitriov]

I don't see the problem. The words are supposed to be insults, that's why some of us want to hang onto them. And as this thread clearly proves people are indeed made upset by them, so everything seems to be working as intended.

 

[Fluffythepoo]

i grew up using the word retarded as a reprimand for something having a lack of foresight or for someone imposing rules/standards on me that i disagreed with(or a group that the group unanimously disagreed with), it could only be used in those contexts.
example: "that's retarded" if someone brought all stuff for a sleep over (which meant n64 all night), but forgot their n64 controller. or at said sleep over a parent informing us that bedtime was midnight would be met promptly with "that's retarded".
if that person had remembered their controller and we started playing a racing game, then they crashed into a wall on a sharp corner; "that

ive found that these 2 uses are the only acceptable uses of the word in my age group. the word really doesnt get used out of these context often, and when it does it does genuinely come off as being a mistake. so in essence, the words meaning has changed (its called semantic drift), were not going to stop using it. telling us to stop using it because you dont use it is retarded.


i do use the word retarded to refer to someone who is actually retarded just because it the exchange plays out like this:
"whats wrong with your brother?"
"he's retarded?"
"like mentally disabled, or just an idiot, or wha?"
"he just full retard"
then we laugh, good times

 

[mitchell271]

Mostly I've seen it offend people with a relationship to someone with special needs. They don't want a word associated with being mentally delayed with an insult. I don't think it is really that big of a deal, although I'm a big biased considering I don't have anyone close that is special needs.

I can't recall the last time I said it, since I mostly say stupid or fucking dumb, or something. *shrug*

All my psych profs still use it. And my bio profs. And forensics profs.

 

[BrainWalker]

It's kind of funny that you wrote this post, and your avatar is a black guy. There's certainly no parallels there, no sir!

Because that word still refers to black people, that's in the same boat as gay.

You seem to be of the impression that no one calls intellectually disabled people "retarded." You also seem to be having some difficulty getting your point across because many, many, many, many people are pointing out that this impression is demonstrably false. The same kind of ignorant, uncaring jackasses who use anachronistic pejoratives like ****** to refer to the people they were originally aimed at are precisely the sort of people who would refer to a disabled person as a "retard." Our country is still really, really uncomfortable with the concept of mental illness, and as long as there is a stigma attached to it, the word "retarded" will still have power over these people. And for this reason, I have no sympathy for people who are upset because they lost a word. There's no comparison between social oppression and the loss of one word from your vocabulary. There are other words.

 

[Bat Vader]

I don't give a shit about these things. Generally I don't mean it as an insult (or more specifically I don't mean for anybody to be insulted by it). People don't understand the nature of the English language, that you can say something with a literal meaning in a dictionary and NOT mean that thing.

I don't care if I offend people accidentally, I don't mean to so they can get over it, if they can't get over it then fuck them and I'm glad I offended them because they deserve it.

Snip

I disagree. And as someone with a family member who is special needs/disabled. Or might be considered 'retarded' I think it has a lot to do with intent.

When someone uses it as an insult, I know they aren't talking about my brother. They aren't maliciously thinking of anyone who is actually special needs. I dunno, I don't see the point of getting all riled up about it.

No, but that wasn't my point. They aren't thinking about your brother, or Oscar Pistorious, or George Osborne (I mean seriously, there must be something going on there...). They are just using a word they know to be offensive without considering why it is offensive. However, this still betrays the fact that they believe an accusation of disability is offensive, and that they would be offended by it.

It may not be direct or malicious, in fact I'd say the majority of the time it's unthinking repetition of something learned in childhood where any deviation from the norm (too fat or too skinny, glasses or braces, red hair or being too tall) was cause for mockery, but they're still putting people like your brother into a negative category and implying that it is offensive to be compared to him.

... Did you just insult George Osborne by calling him disabled WHILST arguing that calling people who aren't disabled disabled is offensive to disabled people?

Did I just say disabled 4 times in one sentence?

I see. So even though I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and Osteoarthritis in both my feet, knees, right elbow, left jaw, and two fingers and that most days doing the simplest of things can put me in a lot of pain that I should not feel offended if someone refers to me as a cripple because they did it accidentally?

 

[JaceArveduin]

Sooooo.... I got a question: Are there any descriptive words we can use now-a-days that doesn't offend someone? I mean, you can't even say 'I screwed up' in schools anymore...

 

[Thaluikhain]

Sooooo.... I got a question: Are there any descriptive words we can use now-a-days that doesn't offend someone? I mean, you can't even say 'I screwed up' in schools anymore...

Many social justice minded sites will come up with lists of insults that aren't based in bigotry because of this, yeah, though it can be surprising how few decent insults aren't based on prejudice.

It's also been pointed out that it might be more helpful if you're looking to actually discredit someone.

"That's retarded" is nice and easy, but doesn't convince people. "That's totally wrong because X, Y, Z" is more effective.

 

[Xarathox]

Snip

I disagree. And as someone with a family member who is special needs/disabled. Or might be considered 'retarded' I think it has a lot to do with intent.

When someone uses it as an insult, I know they aren't talking about my brother. They aren't maliciously thinking of anyone who is actually special needs. I dunno, I don't see the point of getting all riled up about it.

Agreed (sort of). I have a nephew who is "special", and both me and my sister (she who birthed him) get royally pissed off at groups of people who aren't directly related/affiliated/affected by those who are disabled when they decide to take up arms and champion what is and isn't/should and shouldn't be. It's not their place to decide, nor is it wanted.

For those of you who don't have a family member who is handicapped, do not work with those with handicaps or even know the challenges those of us who live with and (help) raise family members with handicaps... Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Your words are hollow, and carry no weight.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Factoid : The derogatory term 'Spaz' is a contraction of 'Spastic', which actually used to be the name of a UK based charity for Cerebral Palsy (citation needed there, don't know if it's just Cerebral Palsy). It became so common as a derogatory term that they changed it to 'Scope'.

Also fact: said charity, the Spastics Society, got pissed off with musician Ian Dury for mocking 1981's International Year Of The Disabled (an event he thought was patronising to disabled people) by writing a song called Spasticus Autisticus. Even though Dury himself had been disabled since a childhood bout of polio.

 

[Fwee]

That's retarded. And queer.


Basically I think it's White Guilt/Apologism trying to make everyone treat each other like they're made out of fine crystal. I'd hate to see someone with such a lack of self-assurance that the mere presence of a word or phrase completely tears your world apart.
People can use all kinds of words to be cruel, and none of them have to be controversial. So realize the context and either correct someone's bad behavior/attitude or dismiss them as a worthless human.

 

[Alexander Bradley]

Who gives a fuck about what you call a person? As long as you don't say it out of malice, there's no reason for you to get bent out of shape over it. I'm really hating this feel-good, pc bullshit we're all digging out of the trash of bullshit that got shit-canned from the rest of the 80's and early 90's. Grow some thicker skin and learn to deal with shit, lest you become like the rest of the sheeple who're too afraid to say anything negative about anything for fear they might have to confront something in their life.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

As long as nobody is around to take offense say whatever you want. Its all about context.
I never did understand why people hate it when others insult them behind their back. If I don't hear it I don't really care what they say.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Actually 'retarded' is used to refer to 'special kids', it's a real term. You need to take intent into account. I would say there are two casual uses of the word 'retarded'. Using 'retarded' to describe something that is unfair or counterproductive is different from using it to refer to something that is deformed or stupid. For example you can say that a death due to lag in a videogame is retarded, and you are using it differently from saying that someone who doesn't understand is retarded. And in the latter case, I think that's direct enough a correlation (because you are explicitly invoking negative connotations of being mentally disabled) to be a reasonable source of offence, but in the former case, that's got nothing to do with mental condition in the same way that 'gay' can be used similarly and not mean homosexual.

Honestly though, 'special' is worse than retarded in my opinion. It must be frustrating for retarded kids to be treated all the time like they're better than everyone else, or deserve 'special' treatment, or need to be talked up to, when they just want to function normally. I mean, I'm not handicapped myself so I don't exactly know, but that's what I imagine it'd feel like. Being introduced by mental status everywhere you go and having people scrambling not to hurt your feelings. Anyone confirm?

 

[Nurb]

I'll defer to Mr. Carlin on "Soft Language"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY#t=3m44s

people need to stop acting so minimally exceptional

 

[lacktheknack]

To be clear, it isn't about calling special kids retarded. It's about using retarded to insult normal people.
So yeah, discuss.

I like how you claim that using the word "retarded" is insulting to special needs kids, and thus we shouldn't say it, but then directly imply "they're not normal" without batting an eye.

Both are accurate, in most cases, and both are equally demeaning (ie. not particularly demeaning at all). So yes, I'm calling a double standard where I see it.

OT: I've asked my mentally retarded sister how she feels about the use of "retarded" as an insult, and her response was "Don't insult people, it's not nice".

Truer words have never been spoken.

 

[Torrasque]

A while ago, I made a thread about how I'd be trying to purge the word "******" from my vocabulary because of what the word has become and how people use it. I'm not going to get too much into that because its off topic, but what IS on topic, is how it relates to the word "retarded".
When I told my friend about my quest to purge "******", he said, "well you can't use the word 'retard' anymore, its the same kind of situation" and I disagreed.

I call people who do stupid things, retards. If you do a stupid thing, you are retarded.
In no way does that attribute to people who have physical or mental handicaps. A person who has a mental handicap is not retarded, they just have a mental handicap. You can say, "well their mental growth has been retarded" because that is the correct context to use "retarded", but that is not an offensive context to use it.
If someone thinks it is offensive to call someone with a mental handicap, a retard, then THEY are the person that is putting the negative connotation onto retard and associating it with people with mental deficiencies, NOT you.

Basically, the people who got that announcement to play every morning, are fucking retarded.

I'll defer to Mr. Carlin on "Soft Language"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY#t=3m44s

people need to stop acting so minimally exceptional

I love Carlin's philosophy of language

 

[JaceArveduin]

Sooooo.... I got a question: Are there any descriptive words we can use now-a-days that doesn't offend someone? I mean, you can't even say 'I screwed up' in schools anymore...

Many social justice minded sites will come up with lists of insults that aren't based in bigotry because of this, yeah, though it can be surprising how few decent insults aren't based on prejudice.

It's also been pointed out that it might be more helpful if you're looking to actually discredit someone.

"That's retarded" is nice and easy, but doesn't convince people. "That's totally wrong because X, Y, Z" is more effective.

Hell, I wasn't even talking about insults, just words you can't say or the naughty police come and snatch you up. So far, I've found crap, screw, and shut up, with more that I'm likely forgetting or haven't got in trouble for saying yet...

[edit] Just reread what I put down, and 'Snatch' probably belongs in that list too... And another add-on, I'm fairly sure you can't say 'I derped' either

 

[Thaluikhain]

I call people who do stupid things, retards. If you do a stupid thing, you are retarded.
In no way does that attribute to people who have physical or mental handicaps. A person who has a mental handicap is not retarded, they just have a mental handicap.

...

What?

Retard is commonly used to mean a person who is mentally handicapped. That's the sole reason why it's an insult.

 

[klaynexas3]

I wouldn't say the word in public as an insult, but if I'm in a private conversation with a well known friend, I will use the word solely with that person. I wouldn't hurl it at some random person, I wouldn't call someone with mental disabilities the word, but that won't stop me from using it in private among friends I know won't be offended. If that still makes me a terrible person, fine, I accept that, but I refuse to let my vocabulary be stifled by the fact that someone somewhere who will never hear what I said would get offended if they had. And yes, I believe heavily in the use of connotation, so despite the fact that plenty of denotative words exist that have the same general meaning as it, it still lacks the same impact that that one word has upon use.