Why do you find the word "ret*d" offensive?

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The point is that a word may be used in different ways and convey different meanings. The classification of a word in an ordinary dictionary may exclude the past history of the word and may even be biased by the author/s of it. If a person find it valueable and accept use of words like ret*d, Imbecile, Feeble-minded, Insane etc. then it has to be respected in the same way as a person who find such words hurtful has to be respected and not met with such words. This may not be easy to know beforehand, but if a person never use the words himself it may be a hint that one should not use the words neither.

The other day I went on Blogthings.com and took a quiz for "How evil are you"? And one of the questions was "Have you ever made fun of a ret*d person?" I would never call anyone that word let alone make fun of them, so no. According to the results I was only around 12% evil. Well, I don't know about that. Of course, anyone who scored 100% is either a real angel or a huge liar, the latter of which would make them pretty evil!

Here too, and i was misdiagnosed as that as a child and the label stuck.

I don't like using the word ret*d anyway and the sooner it goes the better.

It's offensive because it's loaded. I have a history behind my life, the word has a history behind it's use, so when the word is used in an offending context it brings up hurtful things from my past.

...because it would be being used as an insult. Who says in a pleasant and well-meaning way "you're a ret*d"?

Yes, and medical and educational professionals keep a careful watch on slang so that they are able to retire a word from professional use after it becomes a slang insult. "ret*d" currently only is used as an insult. When professionals need to use it, they carefully preface it with "mental" to differentiate it from slang insult use (e.g. "the patient who was just admitted has mental retardation") and more and more are turning to "cognitive disability" or "intellectual disability" in an attempt to stay a step ahead of insulting use. In time those terms will be co-opted for insults too, unfortunately. "ret*d" as a noun on its own is used exclusively as an insult and has no other uses, so is therefore offensive.


Authors of dictionaries are careful to keep up with slang uses and it is appropriate for them to make note of offensive slang use in the dictionary definition, as in the dictionary that the OP quoted. This is not bias. It is accurate reporting of how a word is used.


No it does not have to be respected.




Once a word passes into insulting slang, professionals stop or modify their use of it. There is no way for a person to be ignorant of a words' slang insult use unless their only exposure to the word is decades-old textbooks, which is implausible. If somebody uses "ret*d" to describe somebody else, they know full well that it is an insult, since literally nobody says "ret*d" unless it is an insult and therefore its' insult use would be their only exposure to the word (unless they never talked to people and only read obsolete textbooks- but I don't believe somebody would do that).

I know it's supposed to be offensive, but hearing it doesn't bother me, even if applied to me.

I learned something about that in high school psychology. I paraphrased it this way. People who call others that which they are necessarily not are often that themselves.

Back in 2nd grade, my behavior was very strange to other kids. One day, they approached me and asked if I was ret*d. At that time, I did not know what that word meant. I got nervous. I made a terrible mistake answering yes. They laughed at me and I asked "What's a ret*d? What's it mean?" and they said "You are!" It took me many years to know what it meant since they wouldn't tell me directly. With the kids calling me a ret*d, one of the teachers overheard. News spread around at the faculty. It even reached the principle. My parents were called and they got worried. Over the next few years, I was put through a series of IQ tests. I was never told what my IQ was but they said I did positively well. Not enough to classify me as a genius but well enough anyway. They were still baffled though. I was a smart kid who could figure out puzzles and problems, yet, I couldn't figure out social norms.

I do not find it offensive at all. In fact, it is nearly impossible to offend me by calling me names. I simply do not care: words are merely tools we use to express ourselves.

There are ways you can offend me (or more specifically, put me down), of course; I am not 100% aloof (I believe nobody is). Some people here may even have figured it out, since they accidentally did it and I did not exactly hide how pissed I was.

Newspeak does not modify the use of a word, and so professional use, and may well use, words from the past which newspeak or democracy has made negative, as long as it is evidence based. And through methods like discourse analysis the etymology or the historical use of a word may become important and find way into a positive use. In my country it was not the use of ret*d as an insult which made it into a negative word, but the word in itself did not accurate any more describe what it was meant to describe historically because of new research and a new political approach to education. Since both research and political approaches may be questioned, the use of words may also be, and it is not an uncommon thing in social science to, question/ed.

I have read in many dictionaries in my life, and I have seen many different uses of a word from different dictionaries. When I have looked up the authors background behind them I have understood why they have described a word as they have done. Through the social science study at the university I learned that all texts are biased and that higher education is a way to learn how to navigate through the biased texts. With a range of different options, ranging from disability studies which approach disability from a sociological perspective to educational philosophy which approach disability through its philosophy of mind and body, an equivalent range of options for navigating through the biased texts exist.

Personally have I used, and still use, the word ret*d of myself because I find it to better describe certain aspect of myself than any other words.

Same reason I find "tard" offensive. It's a lazy abbreviation of ret*d. I find laziness offensive to begin with.

Take if from there. Even if the full word is used it can be offensive. It's all about context.

"ret*d development" isn't offensive to me.

"What are you, a 'tard?' is.

I know it's meant to be but for some reason it's not offensive to me unless it's applied to a person. It's like calling them stupid or idiot. But back then those two words meant low intelligence too before they became offensive and an insult. So ret*d replaced these three words; imbecile, moron, and idiot. Now it's intellectual disability that has replaced ret*d and mental retardation. I wonder what word will be next before intellectual disability becomes offensive?

I can imagine people saying in the future "Dude that is so intellectual" "This is intellectual." Or maybe not since according to the dictionary, it would actually be a compliment.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/intellectual

So they would have to say intellectually impaired for it to be offensive.

Because people don't find it offensive because the dictionary says it is. The dictionary says it's offensive because people find it offensive.

Thank you all for your inputs; I see the point that people almost exclusively use it as an insult, rather than a technical term. I suppose all words can evolve into something else. Languages change all the time.

The word "lame" means unable to walk. However people started using it as an insult saying to people "you're so lame!".