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

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30 Dec 2012, 7:22 pm

League_Girl wrote:

I think people who get offended over the words ret*d and ret*d are hypocrites because they use the words stupid and idiot and dumb and they don't connect those words with a mute person and someone with low intelligence. I get that words change over time but so did the R word and people keep connecting it to the low intelligence? Why not do it with the other words too? Why not connect dumb to mute people and get offended by it?

I do not agree with the premise you've established for this being "hypocrisy." I do find the use of the word "ret*d" to be offensive and avoidable. But I also wonder if you can find anywhere I've used the words "stupid," "idiot," or "dumb" to insult people.

Quote:

I have tried to eliminate the other words from my vocabulary but all it did was made it difficult for me to figure out what other word to use so I am back to using stupid, dumb and idiot. So that is why I do not get offended by the words ret*d and ret*d.

I've eliminated those other words from my vocabulary. Since I do not believe "stupid" and similar words are meaningful, I do not see any point or need to calling anything those words. I have not had any difficulty finding other words to replace them.

Matt62
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30 Dec 2012, 7:46 pm

The real reason such words ARE actually insulting is: Gay, ret*d, Etc. is because they also come to mean "Sub-human" Not of us, not really human.
And there, not in dry, pedantic discussions of word history is the harm they do. I heard the word "Gay" used so many times as an insult in High School, despite the person being called that was anything but a homosexual.. It meant that person was INFERIOR. Pehaps something that needed culling from the herd, if you follow my meaning. If you do not, please study the history of what the Nazis did to people they deemed inferior...

Sincerely,
Matthew

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30 Dec 2012, 7:51 pm

Matt62 wrote:

^^^

This is the best explanation I've seen in the thread.

I think the Nazi comparison is over the top, though, because people will tend to focus on that and miss the point.

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30 Dec 2012, 7:53 pm

I only use "ret*d" matter of factly. I will describe myself as "socially ret*d", I would say "anyone with an IQ below 70 is defined as ret*d", if somebody asked me the symptoms of Downs Syndrome I would mention retardation.

I would never use "ret*d" though, defining a person by the fact that they are ret*d is reminiscent of the eugenics campaigns of the early 20th century. Plus I find it to be an insult used by people who frankly have no ground to insult anyone from.

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30 Dec 2012, 9:00 pm

League_Girl wrote:

What about "lame"? What do you think about people referring to things as "lame"? The word means "unable to walk".

raisedbyignorance
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30 Dec 2012, 9:05 pm

My ex boyfriend would call me "ret*d" a lot yet he gets really mad when I call him "gay". What a hypocrite. Don't you just hate when people insult you all the time without caring yet get really mad when you insult them back in kind? I say don't dish if you can't handle getting dished back in kind.

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30 Dec 2012, 11:46 pm

Who_Am_I wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

Janissy wrote:

TB_Samurai wrote:

I don't find it offensive, either. Words change meaning over time. Gay used to mean happy, now it means homosexual. Other insults also came from mental conditions, like idiot and moron. Dumb was originally used to describe someone who is mute, and lame for someone physically disabled. But I don't see anyone getting offended over those words.

They have been retired from clinical use, so they no longer refer to groups of people. However, "ret*d" (actually "mentally ret*d") is still on the medical records of many living people. Once it gets retired entirely from official use to refer to any living people it will lose much of its' offensiveness. The catch is that when that happens, it will be because a new term has risen to take its place officially. The term that is now ascending is "intellectual disability" and also "cognitive disability". In time, a version of those terms will become an insult too.

Oh that explains the hypocrisy. Once the word ret*d is no longer in the medical dictionary and used in the medical field, people will stop connecting it to the low intelligence.

It's not hypocrisy.
They don't connect words like "idiot" and so forth to intellectual impairment because they've never been used that way in their lifetime.
It's as though I called you a cretin and expected you to not be insulted because, after all, the word is derived from "Christian" and all I'm doing is acknowledging that you're human too.

Back in the 1960's, they were still using those words. In the 1970's, they weren't anymore and it was now ret*d.

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30 Dec 2012, 11:50 pm

Verdandi wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

Quote:

People also say stupid for items and for ideas they don't agree with. Like "That's stupid" or "Stupid toy." People will also say "that's dumb." I have never seen anyone call any ideas an idiot or any items or situations an idiot. Only dumb and stupid.

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30 Dec 2012, 11:52 pm

Jitro wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

What about "lame"? What do you think about people referring to things as "lame"? The word means "unable to walk".

Same as what I think about people who are offended with the R word but yet aren't offended by that word nor the other words and also use them themselves.

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30 Dec 2012, 11:59 pm

I tried hard to come up with some negative emotional reaction or feelings of offense to this word, but I failed. My mother often calls me ret*d, stupid, or missing pieces of my brain, and I feel nothing from these insults, but maybe that is because they come from my mother. I don't recall others calling me these things, only weird which I didn't mind either, and creepy which made me somewhat pleased.

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31 Dec 2012, 12:00 am

btbnnyr wrote:

Sounds like she is verbally abusing you.

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31 Dec 2012, 12:09 am

League_Girl wrote:

btbnnyr wrote:

Sounds like she is verbally abusing you.

It doesn't seem that way in person. My mother has a high estimation of my intellectual abilities when she is not calling me ret*d for missing some social thing, doing some bizarro thing while cooking, or not being able to taste the difference between different types of rice and bread.

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31 Dec 2012, 12:41 am

I've never found it offensive. Maybe that's because I'm not ret*d though.

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31 Dec 2012, 1:03 am

League_Girl wrote:

Yes, I know. I used to call people's arguments stupid, but they took it as if I were calling them stupid, so I stopped in the interests of clearly communicating my points and minimizing intrusive emotional reactions.

I still do not use those words for anything now if I can avoid it.

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31 Dec 2012, 1:04 am

League_Girl wrote:

Jitro wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

What about "lame"? What do you think about people referring to things as "lame"? The word means "unable to walk".

Same as what I think about people who are offended with the R word but yet aren't offended by that word nor the other words and also use them themselves.

Some people are offended by the word "lame."

http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/10/12 ... file-lame/

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31 Dec 2012, 7:50 am

Verdandi wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

I found the same thing. If you say "that's a stupid idea" people will interpret it as "only a stupid person would think up that idea". But if you say "that's a bad idea" people will not take it personally and the discussion will stay focused on the idea itself. People don't think you are calling them a bad person if you say their idea is bad.

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