I also wonder if perhaps these sort of concerted efforts to treat certain words as unacceptable to say might actually be giving those words _more_ power than they otherwise would have. After all, "idiot" used to refer to mentally disabled people and few would consider that word to be particularly offensive today.
It's not the word that's the problem, it's the intended meaning. The euphemism treadmill is when people keep changing words instead of communicating better.
This is the central point of this issue.
This person uses a word that used to mean "person with a mental health problem" to describe a situation where a company "lacks intelligence and awareness".
People who have been and still are the victims of this insult do not want to be associated with the concept of "lack of intelligence".
Write the same sentence without using the slur as a crutch. "The company that holds the patents for electronic ink has an [intellectual disability]".
In this format, it is very clear that this wording is problematic.
In any case, it is simply bad writing. There are many other ways to describe what this company does without using a word that comes with a heavy medical and social history.
The word is only "problematic" to people like you who want to emphasisze its historical baggage. I suspect that there are a whole lot of other words you place off-limits. The words "stupid" and "dumb", for example, are used just as often to bully people with mental handicaps and illnesses.
If all such problematic words are to be policed out of circulation, we might actually be left with such dry descriptions as "lacks intelligence and awareness". I personally appreciate the emphasis and efficiency of the stronger phrasing.
What you are saying is that the use of the word "retarded" is viable because it means "foolishness". However, the word "foolishness" shares the same baggage as "retarded".
You use another synonym to mean that the company does not have the intelligence and awareness required to monetize its invention properly.
Reread this sentence that you wrote: "I think simply "retarded" is also effective and concise, uttered not in a spirit of wanton bullying, but rather for the purpose of vivid illustration of behaviour that is, in fact, profoundly stupid."
Now ask yourself what the vivid illustration you are painting is.
In the end, it boils down to a simple fact. The use of these words will hurt some people and discourage others from interacting with you.
Trying to justify their uses does not come off as mature but as resentful and bad-tempered. Especially in a professional setting.
Imagine talking to a business leader who has a child with special needs that is called "retarded" on a daily basis. You may be in a job interview where the interviewer happens to be on the austim spectrum and regularly has to deal with people who call them "retarded". What about a CEO who is struggling with bipolar disorder and whose actions are described as "foolish"?
In all of these cases, you are hurting or discouraging someone with your choice of words.
It may not be in the spirit of gratuitous bullying, but the words still carry meanings. They stigmatize an already marginalized population. They carry meanings you may not be familiar with yourself but that others are very intimate with.
However, by using the phrase "lacks intelligence", you have shown that you also have issues with ableism. Are you aware of how offensive that phrase could be to someone who has struggled with a learning disability, or to someone whose child is mentally disabled?
I know you mean well, but by saying that a person or group of people are unintelligent or that they "lack intelligence" (as you did in your previous comment), you are using hurt language that is perhaps only marginally less offensive and hurtful than "stupid" or the r-word. For example, take the bipolar CEO from your comment above... imagine how hurt they might be if you described their actions as "lacking intelligence".
I suggest you take some time to understand and address your latent ableism. Ask yourself this question: "how can I use only positive language in every situation, so as to completely eliminate the possibility of ever offending anyone?"
Good.
Edit: Thinking on your 2nd point, I suspect that you've got your arrow of causality backwards.
I think there are two arrows of causality here actually, and they form a cycle. A word is offensive, therefore it's taboo. The word is taboo, therefore it's offensive. Why is "shit" vulgar, but "feces" not? Language is weird like that.
Finally, the 'r-word' has been on the outs for /decades/ now. I tend to associate it with clueless teenagers - the same ones typically spewing lots of homophobic slurs - and anyone I hear using it will typically get a BIG discount in my perception.
It seems pretty clear cut that while maybe “retarded” has a different meaning for younger people than it does for my age group, the phrase “literally retarded,” is clearly contrasting against the figurative use. It seems clear that it’s pointing right back to mental disability, even if “literally” is figurative here.
Maybe the lesson here is that for quickly shifting words that mean something different to different generations, sensitivity is a worthwhile thing in a forum whose users span a few generations.
When I was young, it meant children who were not developing either mentally or physically to the timeline of a statistically average child.
It was not necessarily a pejorative. It was just a fact.
> a word with no meaning in today's USA. Person 1: I am literally going to have a stroke if I see another tweet about fake news. Person 2: Are you really? Should I call 911?
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> Who fucking knows anymore? First, it meant factual, and now it means fictional. What the fuck, internet... what the fuck?
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> a much misused adverb, often for emphasis
> "I literally died of embarrassment."
> "Really? How was reincarnation, you fucking illiterate dipshit?"
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> A good way to show that you are a total drama queen twit is to use the term 'literally' to describe every mundane thing that you do in life
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All of this begs the question, when does a definition of a word change? I suppose it happens when we collectively agree on it, or perhaps when a large enough segment of the population agrees. Perhaps at this point, literally can mean figuratively if we consider the misuse, in the same way we accept irregardless and regardless as being one and the same. But I suppose then a new word would be necessary to literally mean literally and avoid confusion.
[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Literally
(This is a perfect context for “begs the question”)
I think that form of the question isn’t a useful one and that’s the issue in the broader discussion. A definition is a useful yet leaky abstraction. If you take the viewpoint that a dictionary is merely descriptive, then “the” definition isn’t really a thing. “A” definition is more appropriate. If a definition is an attempt to capture one of the common ways people use and understand a word, your question becomes this:
When do the ways people use and understand a word change? At what point is there close enough to nobody left using a word in a given way?
The distinction is crucial here because a word can mean many things, and it can mean different things to different people. I’d answer your question by pointing to that phrase about science: It progresses one funeral at a time.
There is a current fashion to use "literally" as an intensifier, rather than to mean "not figuratively". Google "literally misuse" for a wealth of hand-wringing articles.
I'm pretty sure RicoElectrico is using "literally" as an intensifier - after all, companies don't have thoughts or minds, cannot be IQ tested, and therefore cannot have intellectual disabilities.
And a "geek" used to be the guy in the carnival sideshow who would bite the heads off of live chickens.
Think about that the next time you see a Geek Squad van in your neighborhood.
But even if #1 is false it's not up to neuro-typicals to decide if that word is 'fair game.' It is up to that community.
And if they do reclaim the term like BIPOC we still have to understand and listen and not inject ourselves. Just like BIPOC use racist pejoratives - for many complex cultural reasons - it is not up to me/us a white guy to dictate or judge.
Don't necessarily disagree with you, but seeing as "the r word" is no longer used to refer to mentally disabled people it seems a little late...
Originally an ancient greek insult, suggesting that someone doesn't understand politics. Such was life debating at the agora. At least it was one example given by several teachers on English, Swedish.
Returning to the use in medicine; I imagine the label was used verbatim to mean “lacking comprehension” or “ability”, so also describe a condition.
Sure, if your friend lovingly jokes that you're an "idiot" you won't be offended, but the same can be said for most insults or slurs.
However, insults that previously were medical terms can carry particular heft for some people. Try telling the women in your life they are being "hysterical" when they are unhappy with you. Both law and medicine stopped using those words for a reason.
Personally, I wouldn't like being called an idiot, and I would take issue with that word being used to describe my loved ones.
Here however it's not the statement people are objecting to (most even seem to agree with that part), but one particular word that was used in expressing that statement. That's a different thing entirely, and it's what I mean here when I talk about a _word_ being offensive.
Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. Why aren't they campaigning to ban those words too?
No, they were not. And despite what the "you get offended so quickly" mob says, "retarded" main meaning when used in a negative fashion against someone always, always appeals to the "that person/entity has the mental abilities of someone with Down syndrome or any other similar intellectual disability". And you, me and everybody else KNOW this. You just decided that this won't trouble you.
Yes, they were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot
> An idiot, in modern use, is a stupid or foolish person.
> It was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology)
> Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability.[1] The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement.[2] Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to imbecile and idiot.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile
> The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.[1][2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.[3] It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between "idiot" (IQ of 0–25) and "moron" (IQ of 51–70).[4] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49.[5]
No, you may know this about yourself, and I don't doubt that you feel strongly about it, but you're projecting your feelings onto everyone else here.
To me, words like retard, imbecile, idiot, etc. don't immediately invoke thoughts of mentally disabled people. Rather, I take them as descriptions of fools. GP's post is a good example of this, and was an effective use of the word to describe extremely foolish behavior.
Not arguing any real point other than yes those words did. Have a couple of definitions I found in a rather harshly titled old book, Backward and feeble-minded children
> Idiots. — Those so defective that the mental development never exceeds that of a normal child of about two years.
> Morons. — Those whose mental development is above that of an imbecile, but does not exceed that of a normal child of about twelve years.
The situation is similar to famous Dutch insults like Kankerlijer (cancer sufferer), Klerelijer (cholera sufferer), or Pleurislijer (tuberculosis suffer). Using these to insult people who indeed suffer from these diseases is questionable and can be rather tasteless. It may even be confusing and fail to work entirely. By the way, it's also wrong to insult sick people just because they are sick, and it's wrong to insult people with mental disabilities just because they have mental disabilities. But using such expressions to insult, swear, or exaggerate at healthy people is a quite normal function of the Dutch language. So Yes, if this e-ink company was indeed lead by people with mental disabilities, using the r-word to make fun of them would be rather tasteless and possibly also ineffective.
Swear words and insults work because they break a taboo. If you regulate language to avoid one taboo, then speakers will simply resort to breaking another taboo.
English, too.
It reminds me of early 2002 when all the little kids on the playgrounds were calling each other "terrorist" as an insult. Their parents were aghast, but to them, they just knew it meant a really bad person.
I agree with this indeed, but I stand my point: the use of the word "retarded" is by all mean used to compare someone to a person with intellectual disability. I don't know the Dutch nuances of _Kankerlijer_ so I can probably wrong but I wouldn't think that it is used to compare one person to someone with cancer. What would that ever mean? "Retarded" it is used to compare, and it means that I consider you a lesser person just like an intellectually disabled one.
No one's banning "words" here. They are discouraging misuse of language that drags down the quality of discourse.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill
Unlike, say, those who "champion" people and then speak down to them.
https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/yale-study-white-liberal...
I prefer to talk to people as if they aren't handicapped (or less because they are POC) and can handle regular words.
I do think it's important to point out that your taken offense is entirely your opinion. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, and I trust that you're coming from a good place, but I feel it's also important to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of language that you might be personally offended by.
I appreciate the emphasis on usefulness rather than right or wrong. I certainly didn’t interpret “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” when I read the comment and apparently that extends to others too, which also speaks to usefulness or lack thereof.
On the internet, writing anonymously to a large anonymous group is very very much communication on hard mode. Things like Poe’s law reign supreme. If your goal is to get idea X into as many of the comment readers’ heads as possible, then it’s useful to use language that means the same thing to as many of those readers as possible. I think that’s what people mean when they talk about “inclusive” language?
The HN style generally seems to be choosing the clear inclusive phrasing over the stylistic(?) phrasing, choosing “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” over “literally retarded.”
(Not trying to be language police. Just a language nerd who likes to talk about language.)
Then the 1990's happened and it changed its name to something more politically correct like "Association For Individuals Of Differing Abilities." I found out when the big sign out front that i used to park by was changed.
A year or so later, the sign changed again. Back to "Association For Retarded Citizens." There was an article in one of the newspapers saying that donations dried up because nobody knew who they were or what they did anymore.
Just an interesting anecdote.
If you¹ want to use a slur, choose a better one.
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¹: “you” means the grandparent comment (GP)
I'm not sure that's true.
About a decade ago some prominent politician or other official was publicly excoriated for using "niggardly" correctly. I don't think anyone's lost their job for using "retarded" in its academic form.
I could be convinced otherwise, but I believe that's a result of more people knowing not to use it, the same way you don't hear much about people getting fired for saying the actual n-word. "Person gets fired for saying technically correct word" is more 'newsworthy' than "Person gets fired for saying obvious slur".
I did find this, although the person who was fired also made racial comments in addition to saying the r-word: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-lost-j...