• kitnaht@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Nobody’s “associating” anything. Nobody who’s calling someone retarded has any thoughts in their head about people with the mental disorder. If you called them a downie, then you would probably have a point; as it’s specifically worded to relate to downs syndrome.

      But “retard” has come to be an amplification of the word “idiot”. It’s like the words big, bigger, biggest.

      It’s the “biggest” of “idiot”.

      So if I’m gonna call someone an idiot, my levels of idiot are: Idiot, Dumb-ass, and Retard. I’m just calling them the word that corresponds to being a gargantuan idiot. You can’t use “gargantuan” because they don’t even know what the words mean; so you use retard.

      • AJ1@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        hey I have a question: how does everyone feel about “fucktard”? is that acceptable? it’s not a direct insult to persons with developmental disabilities, but it does have a fairly specific connotation that could be useful in certain situations, plus it throws out an F-bomb to emphasize your anger.

        but if that’s too offensive for some folks I guess I can just keep using “fuckmouth”, if that’s easier on the ears.

        • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          “Retarded” isn’t a medical definition under IDC-11, so they aren’t retarded, as the medical definitions have changed.

          Also Retarded has another standard definition – Being held back or stunted of which applies here.

            • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              They stopped using that word because it wasn’t descriptive. The same reason they stopped diagnosing women as “hysterical”. That’s the cool thing about the sciences; they evolve and change over time to be more descriptive, not less.

              And now, we use the word hysterical to describe certain things…kinda cool how that works, right? When I call something hysterical (extremely funny) - people don’t get offended and say I’m using a slur.

              Or when someone is losing their shit, you say they’re acting hysterical. It’s become a descriptor.

              • deathbird@mander.xyz
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                3 months ago

                losing their shit

                Hey hey hey, let’s not use incontinence as an insult my dude.

                • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Gradually?? I don’t think the r word has been directly related to mental disability the entire time I’ve been alive, and I’m not exactly young… You’re just choosing to take offense, which is white-knighting for the disabled when they’re not even being insulted… Kinda’ … extremely lame of you…

                  Oh wait, being lame used to be a health disorder! Guess I’m offending you again…