Hacker News Reader

Comment by kenrikm | Hacker News Reader

Stupid, Git, Retard, Idiot, Dimwit etc.. In the context they are used all have very similar intentions to put someone down for not being smart.

There is one really important point to keep in mind, when someone is offended about something someone else says or writes that is their decision and it is their problem not the one who did the offending.

I personally don't generally use the term "retard" I also don't generally put slurs of any kind in my code. However I do take issue when someone says that I can't.

"Whoever is the stupid fucking idiot who made this dimwitted decision should go get their brain checked."

That's no less offensive then using the word retard and it's anyones right to down vote the comment on that basis or to just ignore me. Thus my point has been made.

View on HN

No, they really don't. Retard has historically been used to classify the mentally disabled, it literally was a definition. Using it to call someone mentally disabled as an insult is more offensive to the mentally disabled than calling someone stupid. That's the issue.

You're free to use retard in your code as much as you want, apparently not on Github though. They, as a private company, are allowed to pick and choose what they want on their site.

Ditto for a lot of the words we use as synonyms for "stupid".

There's actually an entire ranking for those with disabilities - just below a "normal" person was the "feeble-minded", which ranked ahead of a "moron", which was more functional than an "imbecile" which was the last step before an "idiot".

This was all common parlance in the 19th and 20th century.

So explain to me again why retard is specifically offensive.

The reason "retard" is more offensive to people with mental disabilities (even when not used directly as a slur) is that its use in that context is more recent than the use of "idiot" or "imbecile".

That is all. Really. Give it a few decades and we wouldn't be having this discussion because no person with mental disabilities would feel offended by anyone using it as a mere synonym for "dunce".

Of course so-called Internet feminists might still demand your head on a silver platter even then, but (in stark contrast with actual feminists) nobody should be paying attention to them to begin with, even if they make it hard not to.

Idiot has been historically used to mean a mentally disabled person:

> idiot: MEDICINE (archaic): a mentally handicapped person.

Google "euphemism treadmill" for more info.

This is one example [1]

[1] http://englishcowpath.blogspot.com/2011/06/euphemism-treadmi...

Just switch back to imbecile for the next 100 years? Problem solved? Clearly not, the underlying issue has nothing to do with the word but meanings that people attach to them and that is something that will not be fixed by outlawing the word as the meanings attached will shift to a new word.

It's likely not the mentally disabled that are getting offended.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com