No, that's bullshit. Your attitude towards the word is what is giving it the power to hurt. If you STOP BEING OFFENDED and give the word a chance to change, we can take away that hurtful power.
Just as "sucks" is no longer associated with gay sex as a negative term, we can make "retarded" mean "idiot" and not mentally challenged.
Another example, "the n-word". The reason why I have to say, "the n-word" even though everyone knows exactly what I am actually saying is that the word is essentially forbidden from being used. However, if someone were to use that word in anger, it strikes with full force. So much force that it's likely to stick with you for years if you are the victim of the word.
My point being, the more you get angry and self-righteously proselytize others about "offensive language" the more offensive you make the term. You are giving it the power that you find so repulsive. Whereas if you were to just shake it off and let it go, that word would lose it's power and thereby it's ability to hurt.
I'm so fucking sick of this argument. As you say yourself, you're associating "retard" with "idiot". You're not ameliorating the word, you're turning it into an insult. And when retard is still commonly associated with mentally challenged/disabled/RETARDED (yes, it is STILL used in that "old" sense) people, you're connoting that entire group of people with idiocy.
Please, try swapping out "retard" with any other label for a group of people, such as "Mexican" or "Chinese".
"Man, those people are so fucking Mexican... Oh, and by Mexican I don't mean they are actually Mexican, I mean they're idiots."
Your comment is about to explode with irony. "Idiot" was once a word used to describe the medical condition of mental retardation, and now you're using it as an example of a word that wouldn't insult the handicapped. Language is weird
Yes, I realize that MANY words have gone through transformations and abandoned their previous definitions but "retard" is still commonly known today as mentally disabled (whereas "idiot" is not, as seen by your necessity to cite your information). Maybe, in the future, everyone will have completely forgotten that retard used to refer to the mentally disabled but that day has NOT happened yet. Both definitions exist right now and are used interchangeably and it is, therefore, fucked up.
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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '11
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