ret*d

Post Reply New Topic

[quote="OliveOilMom"]Since the "r word" is so offensive when it's used even in it's classical, medical sense, and being phased out fast by "developmentally delayed", I don't see what's wrong with it being co-opted for another use.

People are offended if someone uses it to describe them, even in a medical or school setting, without meaning insult but only clinical information because to them it has negative connotations. That's why it's being phased out. It's already got negative connotations. What is wrong with using it to describe objects or actions that have nothing to do with any disability/handicap/disorder/syndrome/special challange, etc then?

Or is it just a word that should never be used because it upsets some people? It's not like there is a "ret*d pride" movement that wants to change the mindset of people who use that word. I don't mean to be hateful by this, but people who have in the past been called that have been vocal enough to let others know that they do not want to be called that anymore. If a person does not consider themselves "the r word" then why does it offend them that an ipod, or a printer, etc could be called that?

I personally hate the word "cracker" when it's applied to people. I was called that because of my grandparents when I was a child. I was not one, but my grandfather sure was. I will get extremely offended if I am called that, and I dislike hearing people being called that, I prefer "redneck" for people like that and "good ole boy" for the other Southerner/country types. Yet I haven't started a movement to call all actual crackers "snack thins" or some such.

I know there is a difference, as one was a clinically accepted word, which isn't used now and the other is a derogatory name.

I suppose my point is that it's been recognized as offensive and changed in most clinical settings, so there isn't a reason to use that label anymore, there is no way to make it into a "good word", so why not allow others to use it as they see fit when it doesn't relate to people that it used to be applied to?

Maybe I also feel like taking a word that was terribly offensive and changing the usage of it, takes away the original negative connotations. I can even laugh when Jeff Foxworthy or some other such comedian talks about "crackers".

Do you see what I'm trying to get at? I'm not sure if I've explained it right, and I may figure out a way to say my point better, and if so, I'll post it. I'm not meaning any of this hateful at all. Simply changing what a word means can make a world of difference.

One "different use" of a word I like, but feel that I'm too old to say is "sick". The first time I heard that, years ago, I thought it was an insult. It means very good, like "bad" did when I was young.[/quote

Developmental delay and retardation are two different things, retardation is still the medically correct term for low IQ, though mental disability is becoming more popular. Lets look at some other examples: the word s**t for example. Even though it has slidden to the point were it is only sometimes assiocated with it's original meaning, it still holds it's original meaning, only know it is considered even more vulgar. c**t is another good example of why using ret*d is still offensive, even more so then it would have been originally.

The words s***, c*** and f*** etc were simply terms used by uneducated people to mean the things they mean. From what I have read, and this may be another article I will need to Google around to find again and bookmark on this computer like I had it on the older one, they were looked down on by polite society and began being used as exclamations, and are at the point now where they are considered offensive.

I do not consider them offensive at all.

Is it because the r word has been used as an insult that it's so offensive to people who could be medically defined by it now?

I don't find words themselves offensive all that much, although I do find the word "cracker" offensive, but I know that's my own feelings about it and it's just a word. I tend to find intent offensive. If someone calls someone else a "cracker" within my hearing, I have to analyze the intent. They may mean country and uneducated, or they may mean racist, or they may simply mean redneck.

Was the r word offensive to those it was used to define, or to their parents and families before it started becoming phased out? Was it considered ok until it was used by people to demean others?

I kind of agree with George Carlin that words in and of themselves aren't bad. It's all in the intent of the speaker. You can take any word, and use it with a certain meaning, and have that usage spread in popular culture, that it becomes offensive. Look at the use of the phrase "blonde moment".

Ooh! I found a very similar article about the r word to the one that I had originally read about how terms change and become offensive. I'm going to look for the other article tomorrow, but I've put this one in my favorites, and that will remind me, because I see the whole list at the top task bar!

I would say I would inbox myself to remind myself, but I've been a bit down over stuff at home and haven't looked at inbox in a day or two really. Replying to friends takes more out of me than simply discussing things, so that's why if anyone as inboxed me and hasn't heard back, don't worry. My mind is still sore from the past week or so.

But I digress. Without further ado, I wil try and post the link to the article. It's two pages and from the Washington Post. I scanned it pretty thoroughly but I'm going to go back and read i carefully tomorrow. Have a headache today and its time for more aspirin, some pizza, my bed with the freshly clean sheets and a book! If this doesn't work please let me know.

Washington Post Article

OK, it worked for me. Click on the words "Washington Post Article. That's the link. COOL!

I think discussion of language vs intent is pretty interesting, and please realize I don't mean my opinions to be mean at all or disrespectful. I'd never intentionally say a word around somone that I knew they didn't like. My mother hates the word "squid". For the sea creature. Yes. It's not something we discuss so it's not a problem.

I've been called slow before, never ret*d, but then again "slow" is a word commonly used amongst African-Americans than ret*d, I think.

Once upon a time, stupid meant low intelligence. Idiot, moron, and imbecile were all words to describe people with a low IQ. But people started to use those words as insults. So what happened then? ret*d phased out those words. Now ret*d has become offensive so time to phase that word out and come up with another political correct term and that is intellectual impairment or learning disability. Pretty soon people may start using that as a insult and then what? Time for a new PC word?

Stupid, idiot, and moron are all acceptable words to use and no one will connect them to a mentally disabled person and get all offended because of it. But they do with ret*d. Someone can call themselves stupid or an idiot and people won't get offended by it. Call themselves ret*d, people get offended.

Maybe someday ret*d will become an acceptable word when people stop connecting it to mentally handicapped people.

So I never understood about the controversial of the r word. To me it's just stupid to get offended over it and to get offended by it is like getting offended over the word ADD or autistic or diabetes, etc. when it's used correctly. If someone decided to start using them as a phrase, it still wouldn't bother me.

I was called it a lot growing up and it always hurt. Why? because I wanted to be normal and didn't like being different. I bet I would get offended I were to get called autistic or other medical names. But now I don't care anymore. The phrase doesn't even offend me either. I find it funny when people use that on objects or situations. As I say, you can mind as well use other medical names to replace ret*d.

This is all cerebral palsy to get upset over it

Oh yeah, people can use that word as an insult but yet when people say something is going too slow or that someone is going too slow, people don't get offended over it, not the same way as ret*d.

Also I have been called slow too and it's never offended me because it's the truth. I can be slow. Sometimes I am slow. We all can be considered slow because of our poor social skills and how we process information. To a none autistic person, we are slow.

But yet when we all hear someone say something is going to slow rather it's traffic or a web page loading or a game or when someone is cooking and they say "pour it in slowly" no one gets offended by the word. But yet when ret*d gets used correctly, people still throw a fit over that word. It's all silly. All I can do is laugh about it now than getting all upset.

Cracker is also a food. I hope they won't have to PC that word too and rename the food something else

From the article:



This strikes me as odd and ahistorical. Revisionist, practically. I grew up in the 70s, and "ret*d" was definitely used as an insult in the elementary school I attended, and when I was in a special education class in the fifth grade I heard it particularly often, although as far as I know my class was mostly composed of students who couldn't function in mainstream classrooms but had no intellectual disabilities. I know for certain that one of them was diagnosed with ADHD, but I forget what the diagnostic label was then.

One of the reasons there was less controversy about There's Something About Mary is that there was simply less disability-centered activism in general, and perhaps less willingness to listen to objections. More attitudes than "how we use 'ret*d'" have shifted over the past decade, and some of those make it easier for people who have been consistently marginalized to have their voices heard.

One huge shift is in the use of the internet for the purpose of disseminating information and organizing. People who could organize to protest Tropic Thunder were likely less able to organize in 1998.

Edit to add: Actually, this article relies on the same tired old BS that "gay" as a pejorative has no relationship to homosexuality, which requires either severe ignorance of linguistic evolution or is an outright lie.



I should have been more precise: People who are not and have never been part of a group defined as "ret*d" have decided to take up the word and use it to describe things that are in some way bad. It's not up to them to reclaim words on others' behalf.

Just out of curiosity: Were you ever called ret*d or a ret*d while in school?

I was first called ret*d by my wife, after my Dx. It was not done as a joke. It was an epithet.

I have been called ret*d as a kid and I still started to use it to describe things. Other kids were calling each other that and behind their backs and they would say that about things too. Then I started to use it too and I forgot about the use of it in my childhood, not literally of course. I still remember it. It just never offended me. Why is that? It sounds like now it's a PTSD thing and whenever that word gets used, it brings back memories so they get offended by it. Sounds like projection to me. Because I don't have it, it doesn't offend me despite my past.


Oh yeah mom told me when she was a kid the word "ret*d" was around being used as a phrase. I just never took notice until I was in high school when kids started to say it and it became a fad. Then I heard it being used in 3 Ninjas which was made in 1992 and I had seen that movie when I was nine and ten years old. How could I have missed it?

Which is it, a PTSD trigger or projection?

And actually, I am not offended by most words I object to, although many have been applied to me. I am simply of the philosophy that I have no reason to add to someone else's pain, and would appreciate others not adding to mine. Somehow, this gets blown out of proportion into things that it is not, but: Enough people object to "ret*d" that I avoid using it, and I do not find reasons why people want to use it convincing.

It sounds like PTSD because people remember their past and the word triggers their feelings and their flashbacks so it becomes projection because the person who uses it isn't even calling them it or using it on them when they over hear it. They bring their feelings and past into that situation and it had nothing to do with them. I hope I am using the word right.

Thank you for the clarification. I am not sure that is strictly projection, but it is accurate to say that triggers make it difficult to distinguish between traumatic experiences and triggers that bring those traumatic experiences to the surface.

I got really good grades but responded incorrectly to almost every social situation, dressed funny, couldn't kick the huge kickball rolled slowly toward me, fell down when I tried to run, spit when I talked, had a lisp, cried at least once a day, was afraid of things that most kids weren't, etc. I wasn't called ret*d by the teachers, but by almost every student in the shool on a fairly regular basis. I was also called cracker, dirty, ugly, beaver-teeth, smelly, nasty, freak, and many other things that I can't remember now.

I guess it's illogical, but emotions are not always logical. I am similar in what that I angst on either I'M intellectualy gifted or not, yet I consider too that defining some peoples as "inferiors" is morally wrong.

It may be that because being "smart" was always being one of your percieved quality it became part of the way you define your identity, and thus became essential to the way you define yourself. I remenber on Gifted Haven some peoples having that as important for their identity too, yet not agreing at defining peoples as "superior" or "inferior". I guess this may be normal.

Straight as can be.