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]
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.
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.
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.