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Comment by op00to | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure that calling dice "retarded" or using the term "fagtard" reflects appropriate language for 2022. The article's written in a manner that leads me to believe the author was a 13 year old boy. No insight, nothing to actually learn. Just one person complaining about dice. Why is this something worthy of Hacker News today?

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It's interesting to see how far language/norms have come since 2009.

Still pretty damn funny I thought, if you can get past those two terrible and unfunny slips. I like the idea of not throwing out the whole thing when someone says something boneheaded.

Depends on the bubble you're in. Where I was, this was offensive in 2009 and had already start being phased out for over a decade before by my middle and high school experience. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa%27s_Law

I don't think I even saw anyone bother with the euphemism "r-word" until like 2012. It was common in media throughout the '00s and somewhat beyond.

F----t and derivatives, yes, that was on its way out even in my nowhere-near-the-coasts purple-county-in-a-red-state by the early '00s.

I vaguely recall "retarded" sticking around a little longer than one might expect in the Northeast. It fits the local accent perfectly (got that ar in the middle to enthusiastically butcher). Of course I 100% agree with getting it out of the language nowadays, it is quite hurtful.

You can trace use of pre "r-word" euphemisms at least back to the mid aughts and Carlos Mencia.

There are some interesting trends here. Spikes in searches seem to coincide with Mind of Mencia going on the air, Rosa's Law and a tweet from Ann Coulter directed at Obama.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%...

The world is more bipartisan, and discourse more vitriolic. Bad faith is more common, and as such, language more guarded. Outside certain bubbles, these words are definitely common.

I suspect because, despite the lack of sophisticated language, the post definitely strikes a chord with many readers.

Yes, 4-sided dice are crazy in that they simply flop. An 8-sided die with the digits 1 to 4 repeated would be preferable.

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