retard

however, I am a hypocrite and do refer to people who have annoyed me as "tards".

Oh yes, here's the thread

I worked at a residential treatment center with children and adolescents with mental retardation and autism for one year, and it was a profoundly influential experience for my life. Having done that, I will not use the word, personally speaking. When people who I am not familiar with use it casually it usually makes me wince, like a minor social faux pas. However, that being said, I don't fly into an outrage or preach to them about how insensitive they are; it's usually not THAT big of a deal and the world has enough self- appointed referees of behavior anyway.

Many people don't know this, but "mongoloid" (another pejorative term like 'retard' used to say someone's stupid, etc.), was one of the original labels for people with mental retardation, and its usage came about because people with Down's syndrome had the same, slanted eye features as the 'people of Mongol'. As an Asian-American, I find that rather offensive, but again, I don't fly off the handle if someone uses it, because I can recognize that most people aren't aware of the offensive etymology and the cultural context for its usage is not the same as it was when it was created.

There seems to be a radical difference between these two cases, but they're both lumped in as 'disabilities'. So if you require ongoing treatment that you can't afford, for anything at all, you're disabled. End of story?

Further, many written job applications specifically ask "do you have any disabilities that might effect your ability to do this job?"

It'd be possible to be fully capable of doing a job even if you had received a disability allowance in the past. Which'd jeopardise your chances of getting the job if your prospective employer found out.

Shouldn't a government department so concerned with its own brand image would be able to name its services a little more accurately?

Wrt the question, I think retard and mentally ill both have problems, but you can't always know what specific condition (Downes syndrome or whatever) to refer to. Its all very tricky

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. retard2 SYLLABICATION: re·tard PRONUNCIATION: rtärd NOUN: Offensive Slang 1. Used as a disparaging term for a mentally retarded person. 2. A person considered to be foolish or socially inept. ETYMOLOGY: Short for retarded.

Well, it is a legitimate word that has many applications besides the offensive personal insult/ human descriptor one. For example, saying "If you don't move the houseplant closer to the window, its growth will likely be retarded by the insufficient light." is perfectly fine. If someone wants to claim that it's offensive (in this context) simply because the word can also be used as an insult, you've then got to wonder if they are then similarly offended by the use of the word 'stupid' in all of its uses, or the word 'big', etc. etc.. Maybe 'retard' is slightly different because it's less common and more easily reminds us of its offfensive uses, but I don't think lack of knowledge should necessarily be catered to in this way. It reminds me of when they tried to fire a man for using the more uncommon, but absolutely legitimate and non-slur loaded, word 'niggardly' but a lot of people were unfamiliar with it and instead of listening to reason, totally went off on the guy for supposedly being a racist. I mean, if you never want to offend anyone, it's certainly smart to err on the side of caution, but sometimes it does seem to get way out of hand. In case it's not clear by this point, I do think it's pretty offensive when used as an insult. Isn't the real problem that it is a pretty normal thing, when insulting someone, to intend to cause offence? I suppose that's what constitutes the unaccepatble part - that it crosses a line because it insults more people than simply the one it's directed at.

Mental Retardation journal has changed its name to Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Linked from here, which reflects on the endless haemorrhaging of medical terms to the playground.

'mental retardation' does kind of sound like a skate mag.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22let%27s+get+retarded%22+-%22black+eyed%22&btnG=Search&hl=en

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmafp/is_200701/ai_n17118653

"Mental retardation" has suffered the same fate as every other successful euphemism; as soon as it was widely accepted, it became the exact equivalent of the harsher word it sought to avoid: cretin. This is unavoidable. The same thing happened to "handicapped", which was a technical borrowed from horse racing, and to "mongoloid", which was an early medical (and therefore somewhat sterilized) term for Down Syndrome, which is the new, sterile medical term.

Developmental delay is the latest euphemism for this condition. It is frequently shortened to "DD" among people who work with this population, because the original is so awkward and cack-handed to say or write repeatedly. It seems inevitable that "dee-dee" will acquire the same negative connotations as "retard" now has. I give it about 10 years.

carlos mencia is so ahead of his time

I have worked with developmentally delayed kids, and (a more draining job) adults, from people who were pretty high-functioning to people who couldn't really talk & whose diapers I had to change, etc. My parents house two developmentally delayed adults & they take care of them full time. (I know it is like "best friends are black thing" I'm teetering on here...) And yet I still refer to myself as "half-retard" and I call my dog "baby retard" and sometimes it's just that mean old adj. that sneaks out. In some ways I am just a straight ass. I don't even really feel bad about it. Dark confession.

I am not entirely certain about the term "developmentally delayed" as it KIND of sounds like they'll finish "developing," nevermind that my family's 50-year-old guest has the functioning of a five-year old and probably always will. Like in health class when they say in puberty lessons that "everybody develops at different rates," meaning "don't worry if your boobs don't grow until you're 17 or that your voice drops years after the other dudes' do."

I have found, in conversations, when it comes up, NEVER discuss whether one would abort a baby with Down's (or something similar) bcz the answer may shock and sadden you.

i thought this would be a Tropic Thunder bump. has lots of people talking about this word lately. when i was growing up, my mom was friends with a lady who had two mentally disabled kids. they didn't have Downs, it was something to do with her being on a certain type of weight loss pill while pregnant. anyway, it was acceptable then to refer to them as "retarded", but calling them "a retard" would definitely get us yelled at and most likely would greatly upset the mother. still, kids being kids, we called each other retards all the time, and i still use it sometimes, though usually when i get pissed and refer to a situation as "fucking retarded" or whatever.

btw, mongoloid is a straight up racist term and should be avoided.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone use that term (except Devo). I've only ever read it in old textbooks & such.

Howard Stern used to use it a lot. I used to think it was hilarious until someone set me straight.

I think that most people with Down's or whatever won't really give a shit if you say the word "retard" once in a while, especially if it's not directed in a cruel way at them or their friends. They care a lot more about whether people are nice to them, make fun of them, try to trick or cheat them, etc.

Actually, I'm pretty sure I've heard high-functioning mentally disabled kids call lower-functioning kids "retards", not so much out of a status or self-hatred thing, but just out of pure exasperation, i.e. when one of the low-functioning kids is freaking out or doing something really obnoxious.

We don't like the word "retard" because it turns a person into a thing, and it's probably better avoided most of the time. But if you've got a kid who's acting out violently, throwing bodily waste at people or whatever, only a saint would be 100% immune to the impulse to see that kid as a thing, a monster, something awful and loathsome. It's what you do with that impulse that counts.

I think in the big ol' karma sweepstakes, how you treat mentally disabled people counts for a lot more than most anything you might say about them. If a person works with the mentally disabled, and is kind and patient with them, then I don't think it really matters if once in a while she goes out to a bar with her friends and, in the course of blowing off steam about the frustrations of her day, calls one of the kids a "retard" or whatever. The fact that she's even doing anything at all puts her miles beyond most of us, right?

This song triggers some really hard realizations for me, In a lot of ways I see myself as that etc.

how you treat mentally disabled people counts for a lot more than most anything you might say about them

there's a not-very-thin line there but I figure I don't do bad by it most of the time, so it must not be very difficult

I think it's especially true for mentally disabled people, though. If you've got a friend who writes a shitty novel, and they find out you made a joke about it, that can undo years of friendship and kindness, even if the novel sucked and the joke was very mild. With most retarded people, pride and ego bullshit is basically meaningless; they just care if you're nice to them, hang out, play what they want to play, don't make them do stuff that freaks them out, etc.

That's why they were my buds in junior high. A lot of junior high girls were fucking MEAN (news flash!) but not the developmentally delayed girls, who were funny and nice to me.

Actually, I discovered my friend Misty really cracked the fuck up if, say, we were out shopping and I'd pick up a dress and say in a caricature of her voice, "Buh, I'm Misty! I want this dress!" God she would fucking laugh and laugh. Not hurt, either, geniune lols. Or like if I had a glue stick and was like, "Don't put this on your lips, Misty. It's not chapstick!" Anything like that, she would fucking crack up. And I suppose, too...people were even meaner to her than to me, so I got a lot of satisfaction cheering her up. We both knew people were dipshits & we had a lot of weird-ass injokes, good times all around. She moved after 9th grade, tho. :(

I have found, in conversations, when it comes up, NEVER discuss whether one would abort a baby with Down's

Don't invite me you whatever parties you go to Abbott.

It was a fucking baby shower no less!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;_;

shower of baby blood more like

sorry

hahaha

"I'm so happy for you!"
"Me too!"
"Hey, if it has Down's what are you gonna do with it?"
"What?"

http://www.whineandcheese.net/pics/debbie_downer.jpg

The poor fuckers don't even know why they're being laughed at, unlike stoners and metalheads in the summer of Wayne's World.

Oh boy.
I always knew there was another connection between us, Abbott!

My parents ran a half-way house for develop-mentally disabled women. Retarded women. in the 1970's, right when the institutions were being cleared out.

I'm not going to say it was the worst childhood ever. But - I was smart and sensitive - and I lived with eight retarded people in a creepy mansion on a hill.
For awhile I was convinced that I was retarded, and that my parents (who were in the midst of a big divorce), were trying to spare me by creating a confortable place for me.
This notion was not as bizarre as it sounds - my three older brothers had been shipped off to the St. Thomas Choir School. So I thought my parents were doing something more elaborate for me!
I must be retarded!
But then I sort of went forward, while my retarded friends didn't. I was a kid - I was eight when we all moved in together - so they were my friends.
We colored, we did multiplication and spelling, I had elaborate games to play with them.
I'm talking as if all eight were the same - not at all - and there was enough intense stuff to fill a book.
I sort of admire that little girl - me - for being so resilient and open and just wanting to be friends.
It was definitely a weird place to grow up.
I think the hardest part was when I figured out that I wasn't retarded!

Because it meant that my parents didn't really care.

It would have been QUITE a hoax.