The insult "retard"

[GNTLGNT]

....all manner of words hurt...many of them still haunt me 40 plus years down the road....

[Spideyman]

Labels belong on cans, not people. A person is a person.

[AnnaMarie]

I've never used the word as an insult. I have used it as a medical term. As in a boy I used to babysit was mentally retarded. That's the term his family used. He would never learn to speak, or communicate in any way. He was unable to even use a crayon to scribble. I always thought the word meant that growth (ie mental growth) had stopped prematurely.

But many find it offensive to be used even as a medical term.

But used as an insult? never! If I want to insult someone, I'm not going to compare him to a loving boy who at 17 still gave me those messy toddler kisses when he saw me.

[kingricefan]

I was in Girl Scouts for a good majority of my life. My troop leader's son had down syndrome. To this day he's still one of the most wonderful people I've ever met. When he graduated high school he got a standing ovation.

But.....

I remember how cruel some of the kids were. People would call him a retard to his face and laugh. They would tell other kids "You're as retarded as Cody."

There was nothing kind or innocent about it. When I was young I used the word retard as well but the fact is, when you say it you are never saying it innocently. You are using it to call someone stupid. Plain and simple. And when you are using a way to describe an entire people as an insult, well, it's just mean.

I have to say that I was taught this lesson with the word "gay." To me, it was just a term. Until a gay friend of mine said the exact thing I just said above. It really opened my eyes.

I have no interest in being PC. None. But I do have an interest in not being cruel. I'm very glad that this came up because people cane be very cruel without intention and you don't know it until someone makes you see.

Thanks, Todash!

I try very hard not to use the 'r' word myself. Just yesterday at work I was joking around with a co-worker and they said 'Oh, that's just retarded.' and I ever-so-politely replied in a jokingly tone 'I'm slightly retarded (no, I am not, although some of you might disagree.......) and I am offended by what you just said.', to which they stopped, looked at me and said 'You know, that wasn't very PC of me to say and I apologize.' I think by using humor, I was able to get my point across and not have it turn into a big ugly mess. Now, when someone around me says something like 'That's so gay.' in which they mean stupid, I do take them to task, by pointing out that they are using that word in the wrong context and thereby inferring that gay is stupid. I've gotten into a few heated discussions over this, but I have to stand up for myself and my fellow gay folk. You just simply cannot make up a new meaning for a word and expect to not be accountable for it. I don't know exactly when the word gay came to equal stupid, it just sort of slipped into everyday use. Most people who use it in the way to mean stupid don't realize that it IS offensive to gays and alot of other people. Whoopie Goldberg gets really upset about this particular 'new' terminalogy.

[Moderator]

I think you know how I feel about gays and homosexuality, KRF, so hope you will take this in the context it's intended, but I have to take issue with your comment about making up a new meaning for the word gay. There was a time (at least where I grew up) when gay meant to be happy and had nothing to do with one's sexual preference. Just sayin'. That's not in any way defending using the word as meaning stupid, just pointing out that it's not the first time that word has been redefined.

[Neesy]

I have a child who will participate in the special olympics this year. And am very proud.

Guess what? Me, too - my son has been bowling with Special Olympics now for 7 years. He is high functioning and I am lucky to have him. I have seen how he could be treated differently in the past and kids can be cruel. In his case he looks perfectly normal so it is difficult because he presents well. He has been taken advantage of by unscrupulous people in the past so I tend to be overprotective (typical Mom I guess). I was guilty of using that word in the past a long time ago. I do not think it is commonly used now. Cognitively challenged seems to be one of the catch phrases lately. Anyway, try watching that movie with Johnny Knoxville called "The Ringer". As my husband would say "It's a cracker!" (That means it's pretty funny)

[Becks19]

After reading that letter to Anne Coulter, IMO John Franklin Stephens has more dignity, class, and brains than Coulter ever will.

[blunthead]

...when someone around me says something like 'That's so gay.' in which they mean stupid, I do take them to task...

To me this expression has for some reason sounded synonymous with "that's so high" or "you're so high". I'm not saying that I think "gays" are high, nor that quotation marks are demeaning or even very necessary.

I think if you're gay you have to say so, and if you're high you have to be careful who you tell.

I think sometimes highness equals inaneness and sometimes it equals brilliance and sometimes it equals a Queen. Or a Prince.

[Todash]

I've never used the word as an insult. I have used it as a medical term. As in a boy I used to babysit was mentally retarded. That's the term his family used. He would never learn to speak, or communicate in any way. He was unable to even use a crayon to scribble. I always thought the word meant that growth (ie mental growth) had stopped prematurely.

But many find it offensive to be used even as a medical term.

But used as an insult? never! If I want to insult someone, I'm not going to compare him to a loving boy who at 17 still gave me those messy toddler kisses when he saw me.

Now that ... sigh. Retarded is a perfectly fine word. It means, essentially, slow. Late. And there's really no other term that means the same thing. I think it's unfortunate when being politically correct causes us to make the meanings of words unclear, to obscure the topic so that no one is precisely sure what we are talking about. Specifically naming a medical condition or pointing out that someone has one is not, in itself, unkind, and it can facilitate helping the person. The term "hearing impaired" is fine, but it applies equally to someone who has been at the front row of a few too many heavy metal concerts as well as someone who's never heard his name being spoken. To refer to both those people using the same term obfuscates meaning and is confusing, and I don't see how it helps anyone to lump together the man who has a bit of hearing loss and the man who is totally deaf; by necessity, we interact with those people in different ways (example: one can hear us yell a warning to "Stop!", and the other never will; that's a crucial distinction). I find the term "mentally disabled" to be equally frustrating because it cripples our ability to understand and assist where needed. I don't know why it's deemed helpful to pretend there ARE no differences between us, when clearly, there are. I have two adult nephews who are "mentally disabled." One is moderately to severely autistic; he communicates somewhat ... but he's affected enough that it's really difficult to tell what or how much he is thinking. He's never going to be able to live on his own. The other is mildly retarded; he's a little slow to grasp abstract concepts, but even though he lives at home, with a little support he would be fine on his own. The catchall term mentally disabled isn't particularly helpful, in my opinion, because really it doesn't mean much of anything.

I know the goal is to realize that no matter how different you seem from the person sitting next to you, you really have much more in common than not, but I just don't think using generic umbrella terms and/or avoiding using any terms at all accomplishes that goal.

[Spideyman]

From an adjective to a noun. Meanings change. For my generation gay was a term of being happy. The world moved on and so did the meaning.

The term was originally used to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy". The term's use as a reference to homosexuality may date as early as the late 19th century, but its use gradually increased in the 20th century.[1] In modern English, gay has come to be used as an adjective, and as a noun, referring to the people, especially to males, and the practices and cultures associated with homosexuality.

By the end of the 20th century, the word gay was recommended by major LGBT groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex.[2][3] At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. In the Anglosphere, this connotation, among younger speakers, has a derisive meaning equivalent to rubbish or stupid (as in "That's so gay."). In this use, the word does not mean "homosexual", so it can be used, for example, to refer to an inanimate object or abstract concept of which one disapproves. This usage can also refer to weakness or unmanliness. When used in this way, the extent to which it still retains connotations of homosexuality has been debated and harshly criticized.[4][5]