On 2015-12-12 12:27 PM, dsi1 wrote:
> On Saturday, December 12, 2015 at 1:27:32 AM UTC-10, Ophelia wrote:

>>> You said "retards." Bully for you! Now I gots free license to use
>>> this word! Ho ho ho, and use it I will!
>>
>> I am mystified?
>>
>>
>> -- http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/shop/
>
> In the states, the word has been tabu for the last 5 years or so.
> It's quite a change in attitude that has taken place. That's rather
> silly because typically it refers to a person that is acting stupidly
> and not someone with a low IQ or learning impaired.


It seems that when there is a condition that has a label that label
eventually becomes a pejorative. I earned a degree in Psychology in the
1970s and "mentally retarded" was a term for people with low
intelligence. It was perfectly acceptable as a label for people with low
IQ. In fact, my wife was a special ed teacher and spent several years at
a school whose name included "School for the Trainable Mentally
Retarded". There were organizations the mentally retarded and they used
those words in their titles.

Mentally retarded was a much more general term than some of the
previously used clinical classifications, like moron, simpleton and idiot.


> A person feeling
> smug or superior to those less fortunate than themselves and uses the
> word "retarded" to denigrate those folks would pretty much be a
> dickhead. My recommendation is that people not be a dickhead.
>

IMO, people are not being dickheads when they use the term retarded
when it applies to someone who is. However, they are dickheads when they
apply the newer, currently PC appellations to people who are not
retarded. I remember a radio show on feminist issues where one of the PC
female guests referred a male who was not PC as being challenged. I
could not help but thing that a currently acceptable term had just been
used as a pejorative, so that term was on it's way to being phased out.