Honestly this is what I trip up on more these days. "Thanks guys" is a default.
Honestly this is what I trip up on more these days. "Thanks guys" is a default.
"retarded" to describe things, ideas or people they think are dumb?
I remember when I started my current job in late 2014 and someone said it in one of our meetings, I was expecting an awkward correction, but nope, moved right along. Almost 4 years later, when we actually have HR, it's still a thing. It's not constant, but every once in a while at my job, I'll just hear the loudest "that's retarded". Sometimes it's manager, sometimes it's someone on the lower levels.
I work with "we think we're progressive" types, I mean, I already knew they weren't, but I figured by now outside of the racism, they could at least get this one thing right by now. Or did everyone not get the memo to ease off that?
It's not even that I'm offended, I'm just confused as to how this is still a thing in a professional environment.
Mod Edit: This thread title has been updated for clarity.
I agree with this.
Using gay as an insult is bad because it implies that being gay is bad.
Calling someone mentally slow because they did something that is well, mentally slow, is accurate. No different than moron or idiot
I don't use it because people are sensitive about it, but the campaign against the word has always baffled me.
The euphemism treadmill is real. Until people address intelligence shaming in general there will never be a word that doesn't devolve into this. I have no ideas for solution but we should probably place less value on intelligence as a species.
Honestly this is what I trip up on more these days. "Thanks guys" is a default.
i'd imagine that "autistic" is pretty much the line. The R word has always been the one word that can be easily attached to the mentally challenged (let alone how damaging the word sounds which is probably why it became popular...because humans need to become crueler while still maintaining their self-righteousness). Man, I thought the R word was part of the bully's handbook going by how those assholes used it to insult others during my time at middle-school.Everyone I knew used retard and retarded as insults while I was growing up, I don't anymore but I do think it's kind of a pointless battle.
As others have pointed out it seems to be an endless cycle of new words being used to describe the same or similar things (idiot, moron, imbecile, etc) and then those words get co-opted in to insults. Retarded has already had some successors (special is used the same way) and I think it's possible in time retarded will be just as ignored as calling someone an idiot is today, if something new takes over from it completely.
Not sure how you solve that without making people not care about intellect in any capacity, which is a horrible nest of new problems imo.
Retard and all those insults were commonly used medical words. Retard gets singled out while all those words still flourish. I can't wait for retard to not be offensive so that it can join stupid, idiot, dumb and moron.
Each of you can get fucked. And using the r-word is so important to you that you "can't wait"?
I remember as a kid making a conscious attempt to stop saying it since I had heard how it was offensive but all these years later it pretty much has not change in the normal lexicon like other offensive terms. It's a word that a lot of people just don't think is all that offensive, so for me personally I don't like to use it, but if I see someone say it, it's not like I'm thinking, "wow, how could he say something so we all agree is a horrible thing to say?". Maybe in 2 years that 'r-world' will get there but right now, for a shit ton of people, it's no different than saying something is dumb or stupid.Correct me if I'm wrong, but from the outside-perspective as being someone who hasn't lived all their life in an English speaking country, it feels like the "R" word only gained infamity as a horrible slur relatively late in the game?
I mean, I remember even games still using the word, or variations of it for "to slow something down" or "something being slow" as late as... actually last year? Unless FFXII changed something about its translation.
As others also said, it just doesn't get as much backlash as racism, homophobia and sexism, because I feel that it isn't actually shunned enough to be completely registered as a slur in many peoples' minds. That's why, when someone in my FC or in Forums/Groups I manage ends up using the word, I tend to take them aside, and explain why that word not good, and should not be used in such a fashion. I deal with the first offense for that word differently than I deal with racism, homophobia and sexism. Maybe that makes me part of the problem, but I feel like lack of context has made it more "acceptable" to be used.
The euphemism treadmill is real. Until people address intelligence shaming in general there will never be a word that doesn't devolve into this. I have no ideas for solution but we should probably place less value on intelligence as a species.