It's also the word for delay in English.
Just because some childish people are misusing the word for some time, we shouldn't just ditch it like that. Words go back a long time.
We should just remove the negative use of it. And we do that by growing up, not by banning words.
Which, of course, also referred to clinical mental disability at some point in history. As did "moronic", "imbecilic" and others. But nowadays they're really all just strong forms of "stupid".
Even in contexts where generic insults directed at people are not tolerated, it should be acceptable to recognize stupid ideas as such.
>Right. I made a reference to educational development being retarded due to COVID restrictions and the very people you'd expect to be offended were of course offended.
I misread that, and interpreted "retarded" as being a subjective judgment applied to the restrictions.
That said, the reading "[the process of] educational development has a mental disability" is utterly incoherent, so I still see no reasonable justification for taking offense.
One of the kindest women I know, but she doesn't bead around the bush or have time for euphemisms.
Idiot, retard, mentally handicapped, ect. It is all doomed to be a euphemistic treadmill because they can and are used as an insult. The insulting part isn't the word used, but the comparison drawn. Give it 10 years or so and whatever the current word is will also be out of favor as a pejorative.
It’s pretty retarded.
There are, and should be, contexts where insulting people is socially acceptable and where such insults should not be censored. And no matter what words you use (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill), it's fundamentally impossible to get rid of the idea that a lack of (demonstrated) intelligence is inherently negative.
(It's noteworthy to me that the same activists don't seem to be able to identify any terms denoting lack of physical strength that are inherently offensive - except insofar as they invoke gender stereotypes. Why should it be any less objectionable to call someone a "weakling", for example?)
I disagree that any such thing is invoked. It seems that you believe that when the word "retard" is used in these contexts, that it's meant to describe a person with an intellectual disability. I think it's merely intended to describe someone of low intelligence, which neither necessarily qualifies as nor is necessarily caused by a disability.
Nor do I agree that it's mean-spirited in a way that, say, the word "stupid" isn't. It's just more intense.
Freedom and cencorship is another thing. You have the freedom to be rude and impolite, and it shouldn't be censored. But yeah you shouldn't expect people to like you or listen to you.
Because multiple kinds of social space exist, and some people enjoy being able to interact with each other that way and are happy to accept being the butt of the joke their fair share of the time.
Well you know, things can change. In the past it was a family outing to go watch a beheading. That was normal for them and good entertainment. And they would have used the same arguments as you to somebody critical about it.
And you're right, it is a valid choice, and if you really enjoy being humiliated, by all means, you have the freedom to.
I do think eventually when the rest of the people have grown up and moved on to much more intelligent endeavors, that you might start to think differently too. But maybe not, everyone has their own interests.
Plant failing to be properly retarded is a somewhat regular cause of near-miss safety incidents.
As Stephen Fry said: "So fucking what?".
A thumbs-up gesture is offensive in the Middle East, should it be banned world-wide?
Funnily enough the original example upthread was the use of the word "retard" which is harmless in French, which ended up getting the user in trouble.
They're suggesting that the people who conceivably might take issue generally don't and are instead being patronized by and condescended to by privileged, unaffiliated outsiders who assume -- without consent -- to speak on their behalf. And they don't take those people seriously.
It's totally reasonable to disagree with that view, but it's the not the same view your reply tries to engage with.
Priest: “You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering the name of our lord as so as a BLASPHEMER you are to be stoned to death.”
[…]
Priest: “BLASPHEMY! He said it again!”
Old man: “I don’t think it ought to be blasphemy. I just said ‘Jehova’”
Priest: “You said it again! You’re only making it worse!”
Old man: “Making it worse!? How can I make it worse!? Jehova, Jehova, Jenova!”
"Retard" means "thick", in this context, not "will get there eventually".
The technical definition is not how the euphemism is used.
There's an interesting etymology of "retarded". Also "idiot", "imbecile", "moron", etc.
These were clinical classifications, initially used in the early days of psychology and sometimes overlapping discredited ideas like eugenics. But these were diagnoses -- you could be determined to be an idiot, which was worse than being an imbecile, which was worse than being a moron -- by a respected doctor.
Of course, schoolyard kids got a hold of the terms and used them to disparage their (probably cognitively healthy) peers. And so with "retarded" and "disabled" etc.
But "retarded" just means "slowed or delayed". Developmentally speaking, especially when surrounded by other kids in your same age group, that's a noticeably difficult thing to be.
It does not mean (and never meant) that you are certain to reach full cognitive ability eventually. Flights that are delayed are sometimes also cancelled.
This prof lost a gig
It does stick out of Mandarin speech to the US English speaker, but it's typically pretty obvious from context that it's not related to the slur. It's never been worth more than a giggle when growing up, I'm spending like 100x more time on thinking about it right now than I have cumulatively in my life, despite having grown up around Chinese people.
[1]: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/The_fil...
Surprised someone was called out though as all the social cues around should be enough to sense no ill intent.
That aside, I find it offensive a little bit that Meta has taken it upon themselves to decide what the "right" discourse is that their users want to see, and would rather they create a mechanism to let users decide for themselves - which this does at least outwardly appear to be a move towards. They've also in the last few years toned down or removed some of the auto-modding in private groups, and shifted that responsibility towards its community members and moderators - which was also a similarly good step.
that's very different and a case where the closed community should bear that responsibility
but as far global FB community -- which doesn't really exist (there is no "community", just users) -- or, more precisely, what ends up in people feeds, the fact checking was a good thing because a lot of people consume news that way; so this is a big step in the wrong direction
in no region or context does Knopf mean anything offensive, especially not "penis".
1) "knob" *in English* can mean "penis"
2) This is why "knob" was on the English rude words list
3) It looks like a rude word list containing "knob" was translated without context, so that the word "knob" became "Knopf" even though "Knopf" isn't rude.
Wäre es andersherum gewesen, wäre es so, dass „Schlange“ sowohl <<en:queue>> als auch <<en:penis>> bedeutet, und wenn „queue“ in einer englischen Liste mit Schimpfwörtern stünde, wären die meisten Leute sehr verwirrt.
Loose-loose-situation.