I can only quote myself, from Twitter, a week or so ago: "I have a special needs child. If anyone used that term specifically on my son I'd want to punch them in the face. But I use it myself all the time these days, because quite frankly our national politics has become completely retarded and we need that word back to say so."
And then I wrote a whole comment about how I preferred to use retarded when describing my brother rather than something softer like special needs which you prefer for your child. So I guess there's differences of opinion on the literal use too! It is interesting to me that other commenters think retarded hits harder than idiotic or some alternatives when used in a non-literal way. I agree. It's why I prefer retarded for the literal use as well. It hits harder. It says "this person has a brain that is severely broken and doesn't work at all the way it is supposed to". A term like special needs seems to say "this person has a brain that doesn't work quite like everyone else's".
Special needs is a clear example of euphemistic language. I don’t think it’s an accident this phrase was crafted around a word that has a positive connotation.
“Retard” and “retarded” hit harder than their inferior replacements because they’re full of hard consonants. It’s the same reason that if a punchline mentioned a car, you’d say “Buick” instead of “Nissan.” They’re just phonetically funnier.
The poetry of invective, the assonance and alliteration, is part of the artistry of a good prepositional phrase or conversational intensifier. I've never felt more "seen" in my life. There's real music in language if you look for it.
Omg. This spoke to me as a Gen X dude who resides in New England. I had stopped using the word somewhere after college without realizing it. Teaching my Gen Z kid how to drive in 2024 (in Rhode Island, land of THE WORST drivers) taught me the perfection of the “R word”. In local parlance it’s pronounced “re-tawd” and I swear to gawd it’s part if the proud core heritage of every New Englandah. It’s probably what you mutter under your breath at the person who runs a stop sign. It’s definitely what you think when you watch a driver manage to side-swipe the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru window. It’s the Yankee equivalent of a New Age or yoga chant of “om”. It centers you, brings you inner peace so you don’t “go postal” on some ass-hat. Screaming “Serenity now!” To yourself might work as a substitute, but only New Yorkers say that. And as a group, they suck. There’s nothing wrong with “Retard” - I have never once heard a New Englander be so unkind as to refer to a genuinely mentally challenged person that way. And believe me, if anyone still would, it’d be a New Englander. Retard deserves its place in the lexicon. “Retard” is the most efficient way to impart the concept: “You’re better than this. You’re breaking my heart. Be better”. It’s an emotional word grounded in, yes, kindness. Men don’t do emotion particularly well. We need the sneaky compassion that a word like retard can afford us. As in: “Don’t be a retard. A can of Sam Adams beer is not a birthday present. Apologize to your girlfriend.”
Liking this comment as spot on with the caveat that I assume when you said, "And as a group, they suck," you meant the feeble substitutes for retard, not New Yorkers. If I'm wrong, we need to have a talk.
I owe you - if not an outright apology - at least context. On a personal level I’ve enjoyed the company and conversation of many residents of the Empire State. Fine people! I bet we can even meet in the middle and agree that Connecticut is objectively the worst state. (You really can’t choose your New England family.) But even so, professional sports divides us and forever will. New England’s disdain/envy of New York is part of our identity. The bravest person in the world is the individual who hangs a NY Yankees flag outside their house in Red Sox country. I’ve seen it done. Occasionally. Not that I understand why a person would choose to make their self-loathing so public.
I was going to tell you all the objective reasons you're a retawd, but then I decided to wrap myself in the nourishing warmth of my team's 27 World Series titles and take a nap.
I hope it goes without saying that this is all in good fun. I. Love. This.
I take your point. Which is why it’s worth expanding on that example of a person who flies a NY Yankees flag in a town of Red Sox fans. As it happens, I grew up in California. So I understand what it’s like to be rootless and indifferent to “sport ball”. (This is why even New Yorkers and New Englanders can still agree that the West Coast is populated by deeply unserious people.) But “back in Boston” so to speak, that Yankees flag would antagonize the entire neighborhood. It would surprise nobody if things escalated. Kerosene and matches are found at the scene. Did the local vigilante go too far? Depends on your perspective on local mores and identity. The investigating police certainly recognize a case of justifiable arson when they see one. But legally, that’s not a thing, so instead the police just keep slipping the case file to the bottom of their in-tray. “They might call us retarded for not figuring out motive, but they’ll never say we did wrong.”
Just yesterday my yearly subscription fee for “I Might Be Wrong” hit my Visa and today I was rewarded with the most brilliant first paragraph in blog history. I did not need to hit the link. I knew, could picture in my mind’s eye, could feel the pulse of the waves flowing in and out, could hear the seagulls calling, could see the camera panning back and away. One of the most “feel good” moments in cinematic history. And you used it to begin a discussion on the appropriateness of re-introducing the term “retarded” in the lexicon. Brilliant. Seriously. You’re a genius. Take my money and thank you.
I'm wanting "retard" to be allowed again for its literal use. My brother was retarded, meaning that was the actual thing listed on his medical records: "profoundly retarded". He died when we were in our early 20s. When I bring him up for some reason and explain "he was retarded" I will get looks of censure and possibly corrected to a more modern term. It's so annoying.
I feel similarly about the word “disabled.” My daughter is physically disabled. She walks with a cane and can only manage a couple of blocks before she needs to rest. She has never been able to run, bike, or climb stairs. I HATE the term “differently abled.” To me it feels like a lie, and one that undermines my daughter’s accomplishment of just going through her life every day. She is not “differently abled”! She is disabled, and no namby-pamby euphemism is going to deceive her or anyone else.
I agree completely! Also, avoiding terms like "disabled" seems to imply there is something wrong with being disabled. I don't mean it implies that being disabled is a difficulty you'd rather avoid if you could and fix if possible, but that disabled people are not worth as much as non-disabled people. So we have to avoid calling people disabled because it is somehow devaluing them to acknowledge that some part of them doesn't work properly and that can suck. "See, you aren't disabled! You are as able as anyone else, just differently abled! Therefore you are just as valuable and important as other people."
Yes, I guess, but when you have someone like that in your family you know very early on they will die young and it isn't like they have this whole full life in front of them. So it is less gut wrenching than when a healthy person dies, at least that has been my experience. I guess that sounds like I think the lives of people with disabilities are less valuable but I don't think that. And "profoundly retarded" isn't like someone with Down syndrome or moderate autism or something. That's part of why I don't like the alternatives for the literal use of retarded. They all soften the edges. My brother had daily seizures, couldn't speak, needed a diaper his whole life and was fed through a tube in his stomach. I searched for alternatives to the word quickly and came across this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/08/01/2013-18552/change-in-terminology-mental-retardation-to-intellectual-disability. All the groups wanted to change "mental retardation" to "intellectual disability". Lots of other people liked the change. But the report noted that a minority objected to the change, all parents of people with profound retardation. Their reasons were like mine.
I live in the land of those who need to correct speech (Seattle), and had this argument for years with my peers. My peers would go so far as to say it was rude to call something stupid in a way that could be taken as you calling someone stupid. To all of this I would not and do not agree. Like others have said, I'd never insult a disabled person for being disabled, but if my friend has a retarded idea, or needs to be told he's being retarded, well that's what friends are for.
Dan Savage had the right idea decades ago. You can't stop people from saying retarded things, so reclaim and defang hurtful phrases and they lose their power -- or alternately you can empower those words and phrases, and your enemies now control your emotions and happiness. Seems an easy choice to me -- and the path most choose seems "retarded". Be well out there -
I'm so with you. My older brother (severe autism) was simply referred to as "retarded" growing up (in the 80's) and that's just what we said. At the same time, my friends used "retarded" as a casual epithet. I did not, because of my brother, but I also did not take offense. My 22 year-old son has "intellectual disabilities" (rare disease). When we started in the education system 20 years ago, the term "retarded" (look at me with all the quotes) was still on its last legs as an official term. Here's the thing for me, in the end. It sucks that my brother's brain doesn't work right and it sucks that my son's brain doesn't work right. And however people use the term retarded or disabled or whatever doesn't change that basic fact and the language police just need to get over that.
Keep in mind the word Retard was invented to be a kinder word for developmentally delayed people once we started calling our political enemies idiots, imbeciles and morons. Then we started calling things we don't like Retarded which now made the kinder and gentler word as derogatory as the words we replaced it with. Then it became detached from brain damaged kids altogether. This is the evolution of language in action.
Then I am sure some Ivy league asshat decided that was wrong and that you were a bigot if you weren't part of the extremely online crowd and used the word Retard. It caught on as a way to make oneself feel more righteous than everyone else like Democrats love to do. Ironically, they took away the best word from their lexicon to describe Donald Trump. Now those word games are seen by most normies as standard Democrat self aggrandizement. Playing stupid games with words like this has given rise to the ultimate Retard, who may very well be president again.
I figured it came into English usage via French, where “en retard” or “retardé” literally means “delayed.” Today your train is en retard when it’s late, it’s just the word for it. Of course, it sounds a lot gentler in French.
Just because one author 112 years ago decided to define the usage of “idiot, imbecile and moron” doesn’t mean this currently conveys in our generation. But the baggage of the frequent and trashy use of “retard” in the 80’s and 90’s (maybe earlier?) does still linger. Especially when written, many readers will mentally insert the verbal tone of a teenager mimicking Downs Syndrome. As a comedian, I’m not sure why this gives you pause, in particular. Are you asking for social cover to proceed with it?
I do like your posts. Apologies if the invite to discuss wasn’t a literal invitation and I am misreading.
Yes, the invitation to discussion was real! And I think you're getting to the root of the question -- if I'm at a movie, and the small soda is $9.50 and the extra large is $9.75, and I say "well that's retarded", is there any connection between that and mocking a person with Downs syndrome? My feeling is that there isn't, but that's in the eye of the beholder. I think if there was a groundswell of people telling me "yes, that word seems part-and-parcel with the mocking impressions that used to be socially acceptable," I'd keep it out of my vocabulary.
As far as being a comedian is concerned, comedy gives you broad license to say inappropriate things -- that's honestly part of the gig -- but that license isn't limitless. I want people to have a good time, not to be bummed out when my references invoke negative thoughts.
I agree that there isn’t excessive social risk to your example, though there’s always someone. But I’d also guess that this isn’t the license you are looking for. It seems you just want a simple, easy nuclear option to use against your hated politician. So, for what it’s worth, can probably use that description for him with relative impunity amongst your tribe. But you’d likely lose credibility with people not fully aligned with you politically, but who genuinely think you have good takes on issues that would otherwise challenge them. Your call. My take is that you are way too good of a writer to need that license.
I rankle. Rankle at the backhandedness of the comment “you’re too good to x” I would hear this a lot over swearing in general. I went to catholic school. That was always the argument against grass language. More is “expected” of you. And I have to be honest. It’s moving the goalposts. Into another stadium. That plays a sport without goalposts.
It basically takes the responder to the crassness and has them, instead of explaining why “they” are offended simply twists the argument to be “why aren’t you offended”. Which is essentially what you are saying when you make the moral
Judgment that “you are better than that”. Which inserts a base line of ethics and morality onto the argument that shouldn’t be there because that’s not what the argument is about.
“Offense is taken. Not given. “
The framework of the argument that “retard” is inherently offensive outside of context is so dangerous it’s the driving force of a lot of really bad historical moralizing. For instance the argument that “x is negative. Refers negatively to a group of people. Makes me feel bad. And generally can be done away with with absolutely no cost to myself as someone who has a distaste for x” could be, if distilled down, used quite easily as an argument for the abolition of all cussing. And every person arguing for that would hold the exact same moral ground as people lobbying for the excommunication of the word “retard” (or any other word but this is the topic of the day). That’s not proud historical company to stand in. Down that road lies the comics code, the hays code, the PMRC, and jack thompson.
It doesn’t seem as if you read my remark. Or maybe you’ve inserted a specific and “backhanded” tone and intent to my written words. Feel free to use the word “retard” at will. To be clear you are not “essentially “ understanding what I am saying at all. I clearly wasn’t ordering Jeff to cease. I did offer my very specific reason as to why I thought it wasn’t as useful as he seemed to think. He writes very well; he makes convincing points to some readers who’d not initially see things that way, and in a very funny manner. To that end, using that word would detract from the better effect. Like I said, “his call”.
But who can’t use that argument for anything? I’m not misreading. My issue is with the argumentative framework being used.
For instance. I could say (I never would) that there is no reason for anyone to use or write blasphemous language. (Jesus Christ, goddmamit, stuff like that) it’s offensive and I think a good writer can rise above that!
I do feel, somewhat, that that would be part-and-parcel with the mocking impressions that used to be socially acceptable. I don't remember (and think few if any people remember) a time when "idiot," "imbecile" or "moron" were used as medical or accepted terms for people with intellectual disabilities. I'm not quite old enough to remember "mentally retarded" being the accepted term of use, but I am old enough to remember older people using it without meaning offense, and people of all ages using it with the goal of causing offence.
I think part of why "idiot" etc. feel less powerful as insults than "retarded" is exactly that--calling the soda pricing "idiotic" conveys to the listener that you think the pricing is very stupid and silly. Calling it "retarded" conveys that you think only a person with something medically wrong with their brain would do such a thing. Even if nobody thinks you're literally suggesting that the person doing the pricing has an intellectual disability.
This sort of thing isn't totally straightforward because so many of our insults derive from denigration of people that we no longer consider it acceptable to denigrate. And I'm not very patient with claims that "idiot" or "lame" are ableist language, precisely because I don't think those terms conjure up disability for the vast majority of listeners. But I think "retarded" does.
But it wasn't just "one author" defining those words 112 years ago. Those were the scientific terms of art.
All of our terms for intellectual disabilities change, because of the euphemism treadmill. Once everyone knows what the word actually means, it begins to be used as a slur, because what it refers to is undesirable. Then the term has to change again to a fresh word with no connotations. And then everyone learns the word and what it connotes, rinse and repeat.
The word Retarded is irresistible to many people. It's the two hard R's, and the finality of the "D" at the end that make it satisfying to say.
We have two paths here: one is to continue to try to make it verboten, which has not been working. The other path is to stop denying reality, and accept that it is a useful word people like to use. Promote the divorce of the word from people with intellectual disabilities.
On a thread a month or so ago there was a discussion about the use of this word. One poster, who seemed like a very nice lady, was vehemently opposed to anyone using the word retarded. She said it was a slur. I asked her for a replacement term, one that was as satisfying to say and one that conveyed the meaning.
The best she could come up with was "Person behaving stupidly".
Sorry- that's obviously a non starter. That suggestion was, and I'm sorry for this, retarded.
When we learned about these terms in AP Psych in HS, we started calling each other "educable" -which had been a replacement medical term for idiot (or moron, etc, I forget exactly).
I appreciate a thoughtful (and still funny) argument. I'm old enough to have enjoyed the widespread use of the term -- it definitely has a certain bite to it other similar words lack.
I'm thinking about a longtime friend of mine living a thousand miles away who has a mentally disabled son. I would now find it difficult to personally justify a reembrace of this word -- "But I REALLY like it! I said it for years, and not in a dick=ish way!"
I suppose I've internalized the fact that, regardless of MY intentions with the word, when my friend (or countless other folks that have family members with mental disabilities) hear this word tossed about cavalierly, it really STINGS and causes unnecessary pain (just ask them). I still enjoy cursing like a motherfucking sailor, but there are certain words and terms I've purged from my repertoire, and it doesn't seem like a massive sacrifice.
According to Mariam-Webster, retard is a great word to describe Trump and his cult followers. “To delay or impede progress of : to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment”. I’m about as woke as they come and I also have missed this word. It’s not a slight on the disabled, but a reflection of the inability to grasp or move forward with knowledge or intellect. On another note, yippee! This is the first time ive been able to comment and I love it.
We already have words that describe that though: regressive, reactionary, conservative.
You guys just want to use the "bad words" to say they're mentally disabled, and that's fine- though I find it pretty tasteless- but I wish you all would stop pretending it's anything more profound than that.
I love using the word "retard." Yes, I scandalize my 20 year old daughter whenever I use it, but it's simply too satisfying to ever willingly relinquish. Applying the word has an instantly disqualifying and obliterating effect on its object, rendering it beneath even pity or contempt. Something (or someone) that's retarded is simply too fucking stupid and absurd to be allowed to sully our shared objective reality, and everyone understands that. It just works.
On another, subconscious, level, I do realize that whenever I call someone retarded (even myself) there's a split second when an image flashes in my mind of an oafish, drooling invalid, hands and arms curled uselessly in front of their torso like like the thrice-damned offspring of a troglodyte and a T-Rex. So yes, the word is stunningly effective, but we are probably almost always referencing disabled people on some primal conceptual level. It's simply part of the word's perverse magic.
With how many other arguments are here pretending like there's anything more profound about invoking the word, I appreciate that you acknowledge that the reason "retard" has bite to it is *because* it invokes the profoundly disabled.
I swear the resurgence of retard started when that one journalist was writing about clubhouse or whatever voice chat app was and said a CEO used "The R-slur.". It was like a dam broke and people kind of realized how ridiculous some of the language policing has gotten.
By the 90s, you wouldn't really call someone a retard in polite company. It was like a swear word and used specifically as an insult to non developmentally delayed people. We were taught that anyone with developmental disabilities should be called 'special needs' people. Well, by the time I got to high school, it was common to call people special as an insult. The same thing will happen to neurodivergent. I'm not saying we should say retard in polite company, but treating it as an unspeakable slur that you can't even spell out is ridiculous given the history of some of the more denigrating ethnic slurs out there
I said both "spaecial" (I always draw out the middle vowel and pronounce it somewhere between e and a) and "he rides the short bus to school" as an insult in high school. My brother literally did ride the short bus to school and I still said that to insult people who did not. And still got mad if someone made fun of my brother for being retarded (this was extremely rare). And I was not bothered by any sense of cognitive dissonance.
Right. The biggest insults in the town I grew up were "Beekman", named after the school for kids with developmental disabilities, and "SPED", which meant special ed kid. For what it's worth, non of these terms were ever directed at kids with these issues.
I grew up in the 80's and 90's, and used the word "retard" liberally well into the 2000's (well right up until today if I'm being honest). But perhaps I'm just insufferably boorish, or have never have been properly invited into the presence of polite company. Both are possible.
Eh, if I were looking for a vocabulary hill to die on, this wouldn’t be the one I’d choose. We’ve adapted to get along just fine without it. And if we start getting into what the original meaning of words was 100+ years ago, that’s a slippery slope over to racial slurs and I don’t think we need to go there.
On the other hand, I am strongly in favor of normalizing non-Italians using the word “stunod.” It feels great letting that one rip in the right circumstances. “What are you, stunod or something?”
I can only quote myself, from Twitter, a week or so ago: "I have a special needs child. If anyone used that term specifically on my son I'd want to punch them in the face. But I use it myself all the time these days, because quite frankly our national politics has become completely retarded and we need that word back to say so."
( https://x.com/EsotericCD/status/1844893027396972742 )
And then I wrote a whole comment about how I preferred to use retarded when describing my brother rather than something softer like special needs which you prefer for your child. So I guess there's differences of opinion on the literal use too! It is interesting to me that other commenters think retarded hits harder than idiotic or some alternatives when used in a non-literal way. I agree. It's why I prefer retarded for the literal use as well. It hits harder. It says "this person has a brain that is severely broken and doesn't work at all the way it is supposed to". A term like special needs seems to say "this person has a brain that doesn't work quite like everyone else's".
Special needs is a clear example of euphemistic language. I don’t think it’s an accident this phrase was crafted around a word that has a positive connotation.
It's our word. We get to use it.
“Retard” and “retarded” hit harder than their inferior replacements because they’re full of hard consonants. It’s the same reason that if a punchline mentioned a car, you’d say “Buick” instead of “Nissan.” They’re just phonetically funnier.
Good point. Ask any comedian: How the word sounds absolutely matters.
Thanks for pointing that out Peter. Phonetics. Yeah, it's a thing.....
Stop slurring the Phoenitians.
The poetry of invective, the assonance and alliteration, is part of the artistry of a good prepositional phrase or conversational intensifier. I've never felt more "seen" in my life. There's real music in language if you look for it.
Omg. This spoke to me as a Gen X dude who resides in New England. I had stopped using the word somewhere after college without realizing it. Teaching my Gen Z kid how to drive in 2024 (in Rhode Island, land of THE WORST drivers) taught me the perfection of the “R word”. In local parlance it’s pronounced “re-tawd” and I swear to gawd it’s part if the proud core heritage of every New Englandah. It’s probably what you mutter under your breath at the person who runs a stop sign. It’s definitely what you think when you watch a driver manage to side-swipe the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru window. It’s the Yankee equivalent of a New Age or yoga chant of “om”. It centers you, brings you inner peace so you don’t “go postal” on some ass-hat. Screaming “Serenity now!” To yourself might work as a substitute, but only New Yorkers say that. And as a group, they suck. There’s nothing wrong with “Retard” - I have never once heard a New Englander be so unkind as to refer to a genuinely mentally challenged person that way. And believe me, if anyone still would, it’d be a New Englander. Retard deserves its place in the lexicon. “Retard” is the most efficient way to impart the concept: “You’re better than this. You’re breaking my heart. Be better”. It’s an emotional word grounded in, yes, kindness. Men don’t do emotion particularly well. We need the sneaky compassion that a word like retard can afford us. As in: “Don’t be a retard. A can of Sam Adams beer is not a birthday present. Apologize to your girlfriend.”
Liking this comment as spot on with the caveat that I assume when you said, "And as a group, they suck," you meant the feeble substitutes for retard, not New Yorkers. If I'm wrong, we need to have a talk.
I owe you - if not an outright apology - at least context. On a personal level I’ve enjoyed the company and conversation of many residents of the Empire State. Fine people! I bet we can even meet in the middle and agree that Connecticut is objectively the worst state. (You really can’t choose your New England family.) But even so, professional sports divides us and forever will. New England’s disdain/envy of New York is part of our identity. The bravest person in the world is the individual who hangs a NY Yankees flag outside their house in Red Sox country. I’ve seen it done. Occasionally. Not that I understand why a person would choose to make their self-loathing so public.
I was going to tell you all the objective reasons you're a retawd, but then I decided to wrap myself in the nourishing warmth of my team's 27 World Series titles and take a nap.
I hope it goes without saying that this is all in good fun. I. Love. This.
I take your point. Which is why it’s worth expanding on that example of a person who flies a NY Yankees flag in a town of Red Sox fans. As it happens, I grew up in California. So I understand what it’s like to be rootless and indifferent to “sport ball”. (This is why even New Yorkers and New Englanders can still agree that the West Coast is populated by deeply unserious people.) But “back in Boston” so to speak, that Yankees flag would antagonize the entire neighborhood. It would surprise nobody if things escalated. Kerosene and matches are found at the scene. Did the local vigilante go too far? Depends on your perspective on local mores and identity. The investigating police certainly recognize a case of justifiable arson when they see one. But legally, that’s not a thing, so instead the police just keep slipping the case file to the bottom of their in-tray. “They might call us retarded for not figuring out motive, but they’ll never say we did wrong.”
Jen C: It's a sports thing.
Red Sox fan chant.
I'm familiar with it. But, if there's one thing in the world I'm sure is 100% right it's that the Red Sox suck. :)
Just yesterday my yearly subscription fee for “I Might Be Wrong” hit my Visa and today I was rewarded with the most brilliant first paragraph in blog history. I did not need to hit the link. I knew, could picture in my mind’s eye, could feel the pulse of the waves flowing in and out, could hear the seagulls calling, could see the camera panning back and away. One of the most “feel good” moments in cinematic history. And you used it to begin a discussion on the appropriateness of re-introducing the term “retarded” in the lexicon. Brilliant. Seriously. You’re a genius. Take my money and thank you.
I'm wanting "retard" to be allowed again for its literal use. My brother was retarded, meaning that was the actual thing listed on his medical records: "profoundly retarded". He died when we were in our early 20s. When I bring him up for some reason and explain "he was retarded" I will get looks of censure and possibly corrected to a more modern term. It's so annoying.
I’m so sorry about your brother, Nina.
I feel similarly about the word “disabled.” My daughter is physically disabled. She walks with a cane and can only manage a couple of blocks before she needs to rest. She has never been able to run, bike, or climb stairs. I HATE the term “differently abled.” To me it feels like a lie, and one that undermines my daughter’s accomplishment of just going through her life every day. She is not “differently abled”! She is disabled, and no namby-pamby euphemism is going to deceive her or anyone else.
I agree completely! Also, avoiding terms like "disabled" seems to imply there is something wrong with being disabled. I don't mean it implies that being disabled is a difficulty you'd rather avoid if you could and fix if possible, but that disabled people are not worth as much as non-disabled people. So we have to avoid calling people disabled because it is somehow devaluing them to acknowledge that some part of them doesn't work properly and that can suck. "See, you aren't disabled! You are as able as anyone else, just differently abled! Therefore you are just as valuable and important as other people."
I'm sorry about your brother, that's really sad.
Yes, I guess, but when you have someone like that in your family you know very early on they will die young and it isn't like they have this whole full life in front of them. So it is less gut wrenching than when a healthy person dies, at least that has been my experience. I guess that sounds like I think the lives of people with disabilities are less valuable but I don't think that. And "profoundly retarded" isn't like someone with Down syndrome or moderate autism or something. That's part of why I don't like the alternatives for the literal use of retarded. They all soften the edges. My brother had daily seizures, couldn't speak, needed a diaper his whole life and was fed through a tube in his stomach. I searched for alternatives to the word quickly and came across this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2013/08/01/2013-18552/change-in-terminology-mental-retardation-to-intellectual-disability. All the groups wanted to change "mental retardation" to "intellectual disability". Lots of other people liked the change. But the report noted that a minority objected to the change, all parents of people with profound retardation. Their reasons were like mine.
Never go full retard.
came here for this!
I never stopped using it, despite years of oppression and disapprobation. Now all the wannabes will be trying to play catch up. Retards.
I live in the land of those who need to correct speech (Seattle), and had this argument for years with my peers. My peers would go so far as to say it was rude to call something stupid in a way that could be taken as you calling someone stupid. To all of this I would not and do not agree. Like others have said, I'd never insult a disabled person for being disabled, but if my friend has a retarded idea, or needs to be told he's being retarded, well that's what friends are for.
Dan Savage had the right idea decades ago. You can't stop people from saying retarded things, so reclaim and defang hurtful phrases and they lose their power -- or alternately you can empower those words and phrases, and your enemies now control your emotions and happiness. Seems an easy choice to me -- and the path most choose seems "retarded". Be well out there -
I'm so with you. My older brother (severe autism) was simply referred to as "retarded" growing up (in the 80's) and that's just what we said. At the same time, my friends used "retarded" as a casual epithet. I did not, because of my brother, but I also did not take offense. My 22 year-old son has "intellectual disabilities" (rare disease). When we started in the education system 20 years ago, the term "retarded" (look at me with all the quotes) was still on its last legs as an official term. Here's the thing for me, in the end. It sucks that my brother's brain doesn't work right and it sucks that my son's brain doesn't work right. And however people use the term retarded or disabled or whatever doesn't change that basic fact and the language police just need to get over that.
Keep in mind the word Retard was invented to be a kinder word for developmentally delayed people once we started calling our political enemies idiots, imbeciles and morons. Then we started calling things we don't like Retarded which now made the kinder and gentler word as derogatory as the words we replaced it with. Then it became detached from brain damaged kids altogether. This is the evolution of language in action.
Then I am sure some Ivy league asshat decided that was wrong and that you were a bigot if you weren't part of the extremely online crowd and used the word Retard. It caught on as a way to make oneself feel more righteous than everyone else like Democrats love to do. Ironically, they took away the best word from their lexicon to describe Donald Trump. Now those word games are seen by most normies as standard Democrat self aggrandizement. Playing stupid games with words like this has given rise to the ultimate Retard, who may very well be president again.
I figured it came into English usage via French, where “en retard” or “retardé” literally means “delayed.” Today your train is en retard when it’s late, it’s just the word for it. Of course, it sounds a lot gentler in French.
Just because one author 112 years ago decided to define the usage of “idiot, imbecile and moron” doesn’t mean this currently conveys in our generation. But the baggage of the frequent and trashy use of “retard” in the 80’s and 90’s (maybe earlier?) does still linger. Especially when written, many readers will mentally insert the verbal tone of a teenager mimicking Downs Syndrome. As a comedian, I’m not sure why this gives you pause, in particular. Are you asking for social cover to proceed with it?
I do like your posts. Apologies if the invite to discuss wasn’t a literal invitation and I am misreading.
Yes, the invitation to discussion was real! And I think you're getting to the root of the question -- if I'm at a movie, and the small soda is $9.50 and the extra large is $9.75, and I say "well that's retarded", is there any connection between that and mocking a person with Downs syndrome? My feeling is that there isn't, but that's in the eye of the beholder. I think if there was a groundswell of people telling me "yes, that word seems part-and-parcel with the mocking impressions that used to be socially acceptable," I'd keep it out of my vocabulary.
As far as being a comedian is concerned, comedy gives you broad license to say inappropriate things -- that's honestly part of the gig -- but that license isn't limitless. I want people to have a good time, not to be bummed out when my references invoke negative thoughts.
I agree that there isn’t excessive social risk to your example, though there’s always someone. But I’d also guess that this isn’t the license you are looking for. It seems you just want a simple, easy nuclear option to use against your hated politician. So, for what it’s worth, can probably use that description for him with relative impunity amongst your tribe. But you’d likely lose credibility with people not fully aligned with you politically, but who genuinely think you have good takes on issues that would otherwise challenge them. Your call. My take is that you are way too good of a writer to need that license.
I rankle. Rankle at the backhandedness of the comment “you’re too good to x” I would hear this a lot over swearing in general. I went to catholic school. That was always the argument against grass language. More is “expected” of you. And I have to be honest. It’s moving the goalposts. Into another stadium. That plays a sport without goalposts.
It basically takes the responder to the crassness and has them, instead of explaining why “they” are offended simply twists the argument to be “why aren’t you offended”. Which is essentially what you are saying when you make the moral
Judgment that “you are better than that”. Which inserts a base line of ethics and morality onto the argument that shouldn’t be there because that’s not what the argument is about.
“Offense is taken. Not given. “
The framework of the argument that “retard” is inherently offensive outside of context is so dangerous it’s the driving force of a lot of really bad historical moralizing. For instance the argument that “x is negative. Refers negatively to a group of people. Makes me feel bad. And generally can be done away with with absolutely no cost to myself as someone who has a distaste for x” could be, if distilled down, used quite easily as an argument for the abolition of all cussing. And every person arguing for that would hold the exact same moral ground as people lobbying for the excommunication of the word “retard” (or any other word but this is the topic of the day). That’s not proud historical company to stand in. Down that road lies the comics code, the hays code, the PMRC, and jack thompson.
It doesn’t seem as if you read my remark. Or maybe you’ve inserted a specific and “backhanded” tone and intent to my written words. Feel free to use the word “retard” at will. To be clear you are not “essentially “ understanding what I am saying at all. I clearly wasn’t ordering Jeff to cease. I did offer my very specific reason as to why I thought it wasn’t as useful as he seemed to think. He writes very well; he makes convincing points to some readers who’d not initially see things that way, and in a very funny manner. To that end, using that word would detract from the better effect. Like I said, “his call”.
But who can’t use that argument for anything? I’m not misreading. My issue is with the argumentative framework being used.
For instance. I could say (I never would) that there is no reason for anyone to use or write blasphemous language. (Jesus Christ, goddmamit, stuff like that) it’s offensive and I think a good writer can rise above that!
I’m using the same argumentative framework.
I do feel, somewhat, that that would be part-and-parcel with the mocking impressions that used to be socially acceptable. I don't remember (and think few if any people remember) a time when "idiot," "imbecile" or "moron" were used as medical or accepted terms for people with intellectual disabilities. I'm not quite old enough to remember "mentally retarded" being the accepted term of use, but I am old enough to remember older people using it without meaning offense, and people of all ages using it with the goal of causing offence.
I think part of why "idiot" etc. feel less powerful as insults than "retarded" is exactly that--calling the soda pricing "idiotic" conveys to the listener that you think the pricing is very stupid and silly. Calling it "retarded" conveys that you think only a person with something medically wrong with their brain would do such a thing. Even if nobody thinks you're literally suggesting that the person doing the pricing has an intellectual disability.
This sort of thing isn't totally straightforward because so many of our insults derive from denigration of people that we no longer consider it acceptable to denigrate. And I'm not very patient with claims that "idiot" or "lame" are ableist language, precisely because I don't think those terms conjure up disability for the vast majority of listeners. But I think "retarded" does.
But it wasn't just "one author" defining those words 112 years ago. Those were the scientific terms of art.
All of our terms for intellectual disabilities change, because of the euphemism treadmill. Once everyone knows what the word actually means, it begins to be used as a slur, because what it refers to is undesirable. Then the term has to change again to a fresh word with no connotations. And then everyone learns the word and what it connotes, rinse and repeat.
The word Retarded is irresistible to many people. It's the two hard R's, and the finality of the "D" at the end that make it satisfying to say.
We have two paths here: one is to continue to try to make it verboten, which has not been working. The other path is to stop denying reality, and accept that it is a useful word people like to use. Promote the divorce of the word from people with intellectual disabilities.
On a thread a month or so ago there was a discussion about the use of this word. One poster, who seemed like a very nice lady, was vehemently opposed to anyone using the word retarded. She said it was a slur. I asked her for a replacement term, one that was as satisfying to say and one that conveyed the meaning.
The best she could come up with was "Person behaving stupidly".
Sorry- that's obviously a non starter. That suggestion was, and I'm sorry for this, retarded.
Great ending!
When we learned about these terms in AP Psych in HS, we started calling each other "educable" -which had been a replacement medical term for idiot (or moron, etc, I forget exactly).
I think Doug Stanhope excellently explains the problem with trying police retard.
https://youtu.be/7dqsgxLyl5E?si=uHCd5x6oIU1eHFqp
I appreciate a thoughtful (and still funny) argument. I'm old enough to have enjoyed the widespread use of the term -- it definitely has a certain bite to it other similar words lack.
I'm thinking about a longtime friend of mine living a thousand miles away who has a mentally disabled son. I would now find it difficult to personally justify a reembrace of this word -- "But I REALLY like it! I said it for years, and not in a dick=ish way!"
I suppose I've internalized the fact that, regardless of MY intentions with the word, when my friend (or countless other folks that have family members with mental disabilities) hear this word tossed about cavalierly, it really STINGS and causes unnecessary pain (just ask them). I still enjoy cursing like a motherfucking sailor, but there are certain words and terms I've purged from my repertoire, and it doesn't seem like a massive sacrifice.
According to Mariam-Webster, retard is a great word to describe Trump and his cult followers. “To delay or impede progress of : to slow up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment”. I’m about as woke as they come and I also have missed this word. It’s not a slight on the disabled, but a reflection of the inability to grasp or move forward with knowledge or intellect. On another note, yippee! This is the first time ive been able to comment and I love it.
Welcome aboard!
We already have words that describe that though: regressive, reactionary, conservative.
You guys just want to use the "bad words" to say they're mentally disabled, and that's fine- though I find it pretty tasteless- but I wish you all would stop pretending it's anything more profound than that.
I love using the word "retard." Yes, I scandalize my 20 year old daughter whenever I use it, but it's simply too satisfying to ever willingly relinquish. Applying the word has an instantly disqualifying and obliterating effect on its object, rendering it beneath even pity or contempt. Something (or someone) that's retarded is simply too fucking stupid and absurd to be allowed to sully our shared objective reality, and everyone understands that. It just works.
On another, subconscious, level, I do realize that whenever I call someone retarded (even myself) there's a split second when an image flashes in my mind of an oafish, drooling invalid, hands and arms curled uselessly in front of their torso like like the thrice-damned offspring of a troglodyte and a T-Rex. So yes, the word is stunningly effective, but we are probably almost always referencing disabled people on some primal conceptual level. It's simply part of the word's perverse magic.
And am I ok with that? Perhaps.
With how many other arguments are here pretending like there's anything more profound about invoking the word, I appreciate that you acknowledge that the reason "retard" has bite to it is *because* it invokes the profoundly disabled.
I swear the resurgence of retard started when that one journalist was writing about clubhouse or whatever voice chat app was and said a CEO used "The R-slur.". It was like a dam broke and people kind of realized how ridiculous some of the language policing has gotten.
By the 90s, you wouldn't really call someone a retard in polite company. It was like a swear word and used specifically as an insult to non developmentally delayed people. We were taught that anyone with developmental disabilities should be called 'special needs' people. Well, by the time I got to high school, it was common to call people special as an insult. The same thing will happen to neurodivergent. I'm not saying we should say retard in polite company, but treating it as an unspeakable slur that you can't even spell out is ridiculous given the history of some of the more denigrating ethnic slurs out there
I said both "spaecial" (I always draw out the middle vowel and pronounce it somewhere between e and a) and "he rides the short bus to school" as an insult in high school. My brother literally did ride the short bus to school and I still said that to insult people who did not. And still got mad if someone made fun of my brother for being retarded (this was extremely rare). And I was not bothered by any sense of cognitive dissonance.
Right. The biggest insults in the town I grew up were "Beekman", named after the school for kids with developmental disabilities, and "SPED", which meant special ed kid. For what it's worth, non of these terms were ever directed at kids with these issues.
I grew up in the 80's and 90's, and used the word "retard" liberally well into the 2000's (well right up until today if I'm being honest). But perhaps I'm just insufferably boorish, or have never have been properly invited into the presence of polite company. Both are possible.
"You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. "
If anyone tries to call me out for this I just reply "I'm retarded so I'm allowed to say it."
I’m on the retardism spectrum.
Eh, if I were looking for a vocabulary hill to die on, this wouldn’t be the one I’d choose. We’ve adapted to get along just fine without it. And if we start getting into what the original meaning of words was 100+ years ago, that’s a slippery slope over to racial slurs and I don’t think we need to go there.
On the other hand, I am strongly in favor of normalizing non-Italians using the word “stunod.” It feels great letting that one rip in the right circumstances. “What are you, stunod or something?”
I agree, and I'll add the phonetically similar "stugotz." On a Yiddish note, I'm rooting for "schmuck" and "putz" to make it into common usage.
Schmuck and putz are already beloved parts of the New York vernacular. Simple, one-syllable shouts with sounds evoking the attitude. They’re perfect.
New Yorkers once again prove they’re objectively the best. 💪🏽