"retarded"

I don't tend to find any of these insults offensive (socially). Like, I heard a girl calling her friend a "donkey brain" the other day. Should she not use that because it implies donkey's brains are somewhat weaker than other brains?

Our admittedly "White Trash/Blue Collar" roommate uses words like "retard/retarded/fag/faggot/etc." just to get a reaction from anyone. This includes strangers, best friends and family members. She has told us she KNOWS better, but prefers to spend her life "pissing others off".

Maybe that's why she's alone each night and at age 30, has NEVER had a sexual relationship that's lasted longer than a condoms lifespan.

As time passes, every attempt to euphemise a harsh word into a gentler one fails, as the harsh connotations of the earlier word invariably migrate to the newer euphemism.

-- anthony (anthonyeasto...), March 10th, 2002 8:00 PM.

No, I'm 32 and a lady, you RETARD.

Is that your brother on the right?

I hate it when people use the term mongole here, instead of Down syndrom.

Well obviously 'mental retardation' can be used in a technical sense. People use 'mongole' in Belgium? Yeah, I'm not really mad keen on that one either. Don't really know why folks are compelled to use those sorts of terms. Revulsion? Fear? I dunno, hangover from the Middle Ages, I guess. Seems sort of pointless trying to belittle handicapped people though.

http://www.kwaliteitsapotheek.nl/images/products/14218518.jpg

is it wrong that i'm laughing at this word?

The exception that sort of proves the rule is the domain of racial slurs- the thing about words like "retarded" or "dumb" is that you would NEVER insult somebody who actually HAD those qualities with those terms. Racial slurs are used specifically to do exactly that.

JAQUES
A retard, a retard! I met a retard i' the forest,
A motley retard; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a retard
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley retard.
'Good morrow, retard,' quoth I. 'No, sir,' quoth he,
'Call me not retard till heaven hath sent me fortune:'
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley retard thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That retards should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble retard!
A worthy retard! Motley's the only wear.

Just to clarify Tombot, what I was originally talking about was using the term 'mongoloid' or equivalent to describe someone who actually had Downs or is otherwise mentally handicapped. Which is what I thought Natalie meant, but maybe not. It's a subject that I'm hugely oversensitive about. Otherwise, I totally defend your right to go round calling each other mongs or whatever. Just don't expect everyone to find it all that funny.

There should probably be a comma there somewhere!

Yeah, that's what I meant. It really rubs me the wrong way. Maybe I'm too critical/sensitive, but I still can't help correcting people who use the term mongoloid/mongole.

Good times come to me now
good times come to me now.
I ain't lying 'cos there ain't no time
no city.
It's a pity 'cos I dress divine
city smokes - people choke.
Big meanie he's a genie und we ain't got a hope.
No chance - no chance.
Well
I feel fine
no it ain't no crime.
I was dreamin' of a demon and I ate a dime.
The dime floats
the colonel boasts -
Send 'em up the hill boys, this ain't no joke
.
No chance - no chance - no chance - no chance.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me

Shiny shiny sha-na-na-na.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Your sure look fine your shoes they shine.
I taste your face your love is mine

Mercury dan with a spikey hand.
I'm a hot retard
Marquis de Sade.
No chance - no chance - no chance - no chance.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Saw a cop on the line
machine gun shine.
I was dreaming not believing that I was alive.
My mind broke
the cop he choked.
Get out of here, boy, or I'll use the colt
.
No chance - no chance.
You sure look fine your shoes they shine.
No heat can compete with this blue-eyed liar.
The child spoke - "We ain't got a hope

Press the button
press the button - it's all remote".
No chance - no chance - no chance - no chance.
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. ..
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me
. . .
Shiny shiny bad times behind me

their costumes DO look pretty retarded, tho'.

Haha, enormous donkey that I am, I have totally avoided buying that album because of that song! Which is dumb, cos I've loved all the other stuff I've heard off that record and yeah, I know they're being all sarcastic and sneery and punk rock and wotnot, but I could never imagine me actually sitting there enjoying that song without feeling a bit queasy all the same. Which is my loss I know, and I feel bad for feeling all snooty about it, but there you go. Please someone tell me off about this now.

What the hell is a hot retard?

I AM SOFA KING WE TODD DID.

what is the pc term for "retarded"?

to describe people? or things you think are dumb?

people.

in films.

developmentally challenged/mentally handicapped?

finnish

Is this serious or lol question btw?

republican

my uncle is retarded and my grandmother used to tell us "he's a slow learner"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation

for some reason "handicap" strikes me as non-pc, but i've forgotten why. in britain we apparently talk about "learning disabilities" but "learning-disabled" isn't a very good construction.

xposts

serious qn.

moronic
idiotic

well instead of disabled you're supposed to say "person with a disability," which is even worse construction

In my job I would used "learning disabled" or "people with a learning disability". "Handicapped" is right out, for some good and some stupid reasons.

The problem with non-offensive or PC language is sometimes it leads to ugly-ish constructions, I guess.

gay

problem w. learning disability is it makes it sound like it relates to learning. the kid in this film, we never hear him get diagnosed (it's set in rural germany in 1913, so), and his problems go beyond schoolwork.

I'm speaking in terms of the UK here btw.

"Person with a disability" is sometimes frowned on. Social model of disability argues that people are disabled by inadequate response of society to their needs, whereas "with a disability" has a suggestion that the disability is a thing that is attached to them. Kinda conflicts with my suggestions for people with a learning disability above but it's also a question of context within what you're saying/writing

I know this gets crazy abstruse, I'm just reporting from the trenches.

for some reason "handicap" strikes me as non-pc, but i've forgotten why. in britain we apparently talk about "learning disabilities" but "learning-disabled" isn't a very good construction.

i have a very clear memory from when i was a teenager, of my dad and his girlfriend (who both suffered from MS) arguing because he refused to describe himself as "differently-abled" as opposed to "disabled". she found the latter term to be a very negative way of describing himself, but he argued that his disability hadn't suddenly increased his other sense like Daredevil or something, and that the disease had certainly disabled him to a large degree.

http://www.zannel.com/webservices/content/UU4VPG60BY/Image-568x758-JPG.jpg

weird. i had read/heard "disabled" was frowned upon!

xxxpost

"Learning disabled" is kind of a catch-all for problems with intellectual development. If you don't know what the character's specific condition is, I'd suggest using language to describe how his character displays disabledness, but you shd still be okay with "learning disabled".

:( xxp

A whole bunch of the electrical work I do is in social houseing, often w/people who are adult autists. The term I most often hear care workers using is "(people/person with) learning difficulties"

Argh, "houseing", fuck's sake.

"Person with a disability" is sometimes frowned on. Social model of disability argues that people are disabled by inadequate response of society to their needs, whereas "with a disability" has a suggestion that the disability is a thing that is attached to them. Kinda conflicts with my suggestions for people with a learning disability above but it's also a question of context within what you're saying/writing

I know this gets crazy abstruse, I'm just reporting from the trenches.

― SBana Ng (Noodle Vague), Sunday, October 4, 2009 5:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah this rings a bell from a teaching course i did. i can see the instrumental purpose of ideas like "people are disabled by inadequate response of society to their needs" but can't really sign up to it.

i think if you say developmental disability people will know what you mean, as opposed to learning disability. but i don't know the status of "developmental" right now, if it's still ok to say.

think i'm going with div-kid.

Is it not person with learning difficulties, rather than a learning disability?

xposts, yeah, what Pashmina said

i can see the instrumental purpose of ideas like "people are disabled by inadequate response of society to their needs" but can't really sign up to it

It's a whole 'nother argument, and as you say it's primarily an instrumental definition. Obviously there isn't even some stable "disabled community" so language is always gonna be highly contested here. Changes quickly too. From my point of view it's as much about seeking to use words that don't offend than trying to fight the power on any given day.

I think "difficulties" was preferred slightly before "disability", cos again "disability" implies a relationship between an individual with an impairment and society whereas difficulties tends to centre the problem with the individual.

People I know who have friends or loved ones who would fall into this category either use "person with a disability" or just "retarded." The people I know who prefer the latter say that it gets the point across and is universally comprehensible, and feel that the problem with the word is the way people use as a negative signifier, rather than as a descriptive term for someone with a disability. The people I know who prefer "person with a disability" are trying to avoid the stigma of the word "retarded" and use "person first" language.

I basically just try to remember and respect the wishes of whomever I'm talking to, or be aware of the language that the other person is using and follow suit. The one universal preference I've noted is that people stop using "retarded" as a pejorative.

yeah, i took a class where one of the units was about the educational rights of persons with disabilities and that terminology (not "disabled people") was preferred by the textbook and my professor, but i know a lot of people will call themselves "disabled" or whatever they like. this is in the u.s. though.

I used to work on an employability contract called New Deal for Disabled People, and as part of my job I went on awareness courses and was told not to use the term "disabled people". Go figure.

People I know who have friends or loved ones who would fall into this category either use "person with a disability" or just "retarded." The people I know who prefer the latter say that it gets the point across and is universally comprehensible

Yeah, this. The CFO at the newspaper my wife used to work at was pretty sanguine about referring to her son's mental retardation as just that. She'd generally phrase the sentence so she could use the word "retardation" rather than "retarded."

i think the only way to so it is to use a phrase that defies syntax. if you have a one-word noun or adjective like retard/retarded, it will take on a pejorative meaning. because you can't use the term "person with a disability" in normal english it's protected from that – fair dos, but it doesn't yield an adjective – "disabled" alone usually means physical. "mentally disabled son" would work, but "mental" is pejorative, and i'm not sure it's physiologically accurate; "learning-disabled" is just bad and misleading outside an institutional context.

is "developmentally disabled" bad?

xpost to ailsa

haha I suspect there's tons of people independently giving out different advice. The really "do not use" stuff is pretty obv, but it differs between US and UK. Americans still routinely use terms that'd get you sacked/kicked in the nuts over here, and it probably works the other way too. It's not like there's some ultimate arbiter of this stuff.

Mrs V did once get in touch with a national epilepsy charity to see if they had a prob with "brainstorm" tho, as we both suspected that the story that it was considered offensive was bollocks. Dude there was like "yeah, it's bollocks, who ever used that word pejoratively?"

xpost to harbl

I've heard it used. Used to talk about "developmental delay" a lot esp. with young children who were as yet undiagnosed with a specific condition.

it's not terrible, though again, connotes physical disability, to me at any rate.

xpost

developmentally always seems to mean something like down's syndrome or similar here

Developmental delay/disability virtually always connotes some kind of learning disability in the UK in my experience. It's often a label for undiagnosed Autism Spectrum conditions for example.

Or Down's syndrome yeah altho that's not undiagnosed obv.

if they had a prob with "brainstorm" tho, as we both suspected that the story that it was considered offensive was bollocks.

When I was having weekly visits to the nuthouse a few years ago, when I was having anxiety/anger management therapy, the counsellor did once say that the term "brainstorm" was considered not OK, and she had to use the term "thought shower" (!) instead. I've never heard this one from anyone else tho, so I took/take what she said w/a pinch of salt tbh.

Haha, it's POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE MAD!

Btw in my job we talk about "hidden disabilities" for stuff like Autism Spectrum or other things which aren't obvious to the casual observer.

I think that in the US, the phrase developmental disability is often used to describe any sort of cognitive/mental disability (delay, impairment, whatever, including NV's "hidden disabilities"), with the idea that all disabilities can be classified either as physical or developmental for simplicity's sake. The word disability persists due to the Americans With Disabilities Act. The language is shaped by the fact that diagnoses are, in effect, demands for ADWA coverage.

"Developmental delay" can also be misleading as it suggests that the "delayed" person will "catch up." Intellectual disability is the new retarded.

Holy shit at the brainstorm, though. Really?

Words cannot implant a greater understanding than that which already exists in society. The movement to allow all children to grow up among their peers, also known as mainstreaming, and having adults show kids how to behave like decent human beings toward everyone, regardless of abilities, has done immeasurably more to promote understanding and defeat ugly stereotypes than all the euphemisms ever proposed or adopted.

When so much more remains to be done along those useful and effective lines, spending more than a moment's effort on defining the proper prepositional relationship between a person and a disability seems to me like a stupid waste.

I think the effort to not say things to people that are needlessly offensive doesn't seem like a stupid waste.

in california schools we generally say "severe developmental disability" to talk about things like down's syndrome.

when i hear my kids call something "retarded" i like to tell them retardation runs in my family (it does, on my mother's side, she has like three or four cousins with down's syndrome) and that usually gets them sort of flustered.

xpost

I'm not sure how deeply I want to get into this one, but I guess i will shuffle in a little deeper.

Now, if you look at my stated position, I am not saying that any efforts to avoid offense are nothing but a stupid waste, but only when viewed in relation to the whole situation. It's like dithering over a cut on a finger while the patient is hemmoraghing internally.

Next, offense is a malleable thing. It comes in many degrees. It may be given intentionally or inadvertently. When given, whether intentionally or otherwise, it's target may overlook it, accept it, or magnify it. It may be encompassed in any set of words, merely by investing those words with an offensive tone and intent. In contrast, genuine heartfelt kindness may be accompanied by words that would ordinarily offend, but the actions and intentions will cancel out most or all of the offense.

It is psychologically true that people who are frequently exposed to both intentional and inadvertent abuse learn to anticipate it. Any abuse that is embedded in society will be encountered very frequently. The victims of this abuse lose a certain elasticity in dealing with it. They become more likely to magnify inadvertent offense than to minimize it, because they are bloody sick and tired of it all.

So, while it is true that certain forms of speaking can be taken as offensive and the offense taken from these forms is sometimes magnified out of all proportion to the offense implied, I submit that this is only an unfortunate side effect, and that this magnification of offense would not exist were it not for the abuse itself, so that ending the abuse will solve almost the entire problem of offense, whereas modifying the form of speech is just treating a symptom and treating badly, it in a very temporary and ineffective way.

Sure, something is accomplished by shoveling a new euphemism into the ever-growing pile, but it is a very small accomplishment and it will not last long. Changing social attitudes will change things globally.

"developmentally delayed" is the term of the day, in the group homes/programs where I've worked

That all makes sense. But absent any quick, clean method of changing everyone's social attitudes overnight, there's nothing wrong with attempting to adopt some measure of compassion/sensitivity in one's speech. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's probably a good idea. And sure, you can go too far in that direction, or attach too much importance to it, but shit, common courtesy has value in itself.

re: aimless

there's nothing wrong with attempting to adopt some measure of compassion/sensitivity in one's speech

Of course, you are correct, and I've not said anything to contradict that.

I do get impatient with prolonged discussions about whether to say "learning disabled" or "people with a learning disability", and then agonizing whether "with" implies that the disability is an inherent trait, rather than a societal imposition, so the search for the perfect construction will go on even longer. This is the sort of thing people do when they don't know what they should be doing.

Old saying: actions speak louder than words. Still applies.

Yr last post comes across as a general condemnation of attempts to avoid giving offense. Understand that this may not have been your intent.

"learning difficulties" or maybe even "mental difficulties" at work over here. "disabled" would still be a fairly normal term to hear i'd say, covering physical or learning issues.

"You're so non-offensive pejorative" didn't go over so well on the school yard. Help!

work on your tone

Let me see if I can grasp this. You said:

there's nothing wrong with attempting to adopt some measure of compassion/sensitivity in one's speech

To which I replied:

Of course, you are correct

And this reply "comes across as a general condemnation of attempts to avoid giving offense"? I am sorry, contenderizer, but I still do not grasp how this could be construed as such. I am willing to listen, though.

So when people from the assisted living house down the street come in wanting calendars about rabbits, how do I phrase to my boss that we should get some calendars about rabbits because some people from the assisted living house down the street would like to buy some?

Hey, I just answered my own question.

still, I botched a few interactions stuck between saying "the retarded guys" and feeling and coming across like a jerk, and saying "those how do you say slow or developly challenged guys, you know what I mean sorry, never mind it doesn't matter I feel stupid now. GODDammit."

sorry about the above post.

I will say that I've tried to eliminate "retarded" from my vocabulary the same way I've tried to eliminate "gay" as a vague catch-all insult.

"fucking stupid" and "jesus fuck, that's lame" work better anyway.

So, jesus stupid, that above post was fucking lame.

When I was in elementary school, we would call each other b-rays. It wasn't until I got to junior high that I found out that B-Ray was a retarded kid that went to a different elementary and we had been insulting each other with the nickname of a real kid.

I hold it as an article of faith that anyone who uses the words "retard" or "spaz" as an adult is clearly not ready for marriage or children.

People I know who work with metally retarded adults call them just that - mentally retarded. Since I have heard this used by professionals I tend to use that term as well.

"When i hear my kids call something "retarded".

I will admit that I ocasionally use it in this way but I don't tend to get hung up on language in that respect at all. Before anyone jumps all over me, I had a severely retarded first cousin named Andy. He was not developmentally delayed as he was never going to catch up. He had the mental abilities of a toddler even when he was a teenager. As a direct result of his retardation he ran away from his mother while out shopping and was hit and killed by a train. It was (and still is) incredibly sad but when I tell people about Andy I am much more likely to say that he was retarded rather use any other term because it seems the most fitting and direct description of his condition.

My dad works for a place that helps developmentally delayed adults, he takes care of a developmentally delayed adult at his home for $2k a month and it's the only reason his home hasn't been foreclosed on, and he just called me a "retard" on facebook. Fuck him and fuck anyone who uses this word, especially with EC levels of irony like that.

Places I worked with developmentally delayed people, saying "retard" was literally grounds for being fired.

as it should be.

i do think it is slowly becoming more and more socially unacceptable to drop this.

I am totally, totally enraged right now.

and your father did this?

Yeah, the guy who the only reason he has money or a job is "retards" just called me a "retard" in a public forum. No one makes me angry like my dad does.

great. Same here.

Like I am so pissed right now I have no idea what to do, I haven't been this mad in years. Fuck.

call him up and chew him out imo.

The guy has always been, and will always be, a huge fucking bigot no matter what anyone says to him. Him & my mom's 30th anniversary happened in August and they spent the whole day fighting about some stupid book he purchased that claims all Muslims secretly practice sharia law & are trying to get sharia law to replace the U.S. Constitution. My mom tore up the book and called it "hate propaganda." But he still sends me all these stupid fucking forwards about sharia law conspiracies. If an all-day fight with the person he ostensibly loves the most didn't change his mind, I can't change his mind. I can't change that he's a bigot and an asshole who only cares about himself. It dives me nuts, and it's embarrassing as hell.

banded from ILE

call him a white devil imo

fucking honkys.

practice islam. start out slow by not eating pork when you're at the house and work your way up to praying on a little rug in the living room beofre thanksgiving dinner

I seriously thought about that once! God, that would be the stupidest form of rebellion ever, because I am an atheist and would be bad at faking it.

i still say this sometimes and it's pretty bad, i should be more conscious of it :\

Tell him the best revenge you'll ever be able to get is not taking after him in any way possible, and the 2nd best revenge is going to be not crying at his funeral.

...damn, I thought this full moon was making everybody else mean, but it's getting to me too...

Defriend him on Facebook and refuse to speak to him. If he tries to talk to you when you call home, hang up on him. Only speak to your mother and pretend he doesn't exist.

Freezing people out is sort of paradoxical: You can only really do it right when you really don't care whether they exist in the world because they've just pushed you that far -- all notice of either their good or bad qualities is now completely beside the point.

Otherwise it's just manipulative & pass agg.

i still say this sometimes and it's pretty bad, i should be more conscious of it :\

― S Beez Wit the Remedy (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, October 25, 2010 2:08 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too. going to use this revive as motivation to be better about it.

Me three. :/ The worst part would be being hated by Abbotttttttt.

I started another thread so we don't have to talk about my stupid fucking family on this thread. SOrry for the derail.

EC levels of irony

elvis costello?

EC comics, where like if you live as a pencil sharpener for a living, you get killed by a giant pencil.

ah thx

I was assuming it was "Extra Credit", personally.

sorry, it was kind of an arcane thing to assume everyone knows!

the healing hates of abbbottt. i don't think i use the word out loud but i want to be more hardline

Why can we get rid of those words but not get rid of the word "hater/s"? People tend to forget that it's namecalling too.
It irritates me a hell of a lot more than the supposedly harsher insults, too because so many wear hateration like a badge on their sleeve and think it gives them self-esteem some how.

i don't think that's equivalent at all

"haters" has many useful applications *we the best*

guys dnftt

abbbott why not channel some of that anger into a comic strip where someone lives as a pencil sharpener for a living, i wld totes like to read that

yeah, what's wrong w HATERS

guys dnftt

― horseshoe, Monday, October 25, 2010 11:37 AM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark

you're not talking about me right

on your topic, abbott, i really get feeling embarrassed by your parents' bigoted views, but i think at some point you have to stop feeling responsible for them in that way.

xp haha of course not!

sry paranoid

it's no use being mean on the internet; all that happens is nice, reasonable people think you're talking about them

on your topic, abbott, i really get feeling embarrassed by your parents' bigoted views, but i think at some point you have to stop feeling responsible for them in that way.

^ this, for me- prob wouldn't be more than a moment's irritation for me if my dad came out with similar kinds of stuff. i'm not the boss of him.

http://verybadfrog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Killed-by-Giant-Pencil.jpg

You guys have a good point. With anyone else, I think 'eh, they didn't choose their family,' but it is way hard to apply that same reasoning to my own life.

xp omg

http://www.movies-seivom.org/DaffyPainted2.jpg

i remember the giant pencil story

I still do this :/ on the plus side I have managed to stop the gay slurs. this word is next to go.

not really out of politeness, but i've been stretching the vowels on various epithets to the point where they're pretty unrecognizable
e.g. "leeeeeeeeeeeeeem" for "lame"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2hqzEKbaIQ

interacting with gamers has done more to ruin my vocabulary than three years of middle school ever could

reading fantasy names/placenames killed my burgeoning scrabble career in a similar fashion

Godamnit, I keep trying to enter "snu" and "Pern" into the various word games on my phone.

it's an affliction

I've been noticing people using "retard" and "retarded" a lot on ILX. I was thinking we could also bring back things like "cunt", "faggot", and "nigger"; I know they're a little more powerful, but I think they're all really effective at getting our points across in ways that other words really can't.

Pronunciation: Brit. /rᵻˈtɑːdᵻd/ , U.S. /rəˈtɑrdəd/ , /riˈtɑrdəd/
Etymology: < retard v. + -ed suffix1. Compare earlier retardate adj.1... (Show More)
A. adj.
1.
Thesaurus »

a. Held back or in check; hindered, impeded; delayed, deferred.

2008 R. Taras Europe Old & New i. 34 Arguably, the legacy of communism manifests itself most acutely in the retarded economic development of the east.

The word wasn't used to refer to ppl with low IQs until 1895, about 259 years after the word entered English in the original sense. If ppl only used the word to mean someone displaying characteristics associated w/ a person of low IQ, I'd understand the queasiness around it, but since the word often means that something is "stupid, silly; foolish; pathetic," which doesn't necessarily connote low IQ at all, I think the offensiveness is a little manufactured. It could easily denote delay/hinderance/impediment.

Oh yeah, I'm sure those kids on the subway were also intentionally calling each other bundles of sticks or twigs too. Crap reasoning Mordy, its still offensive.

Except that low IQ "retarded" comes from the original meaning of the word. "Faggot" comes from a derogatory term for old women that linguistically traveled to gay men. The first one has a legitimate meaning even in how it's used by kids on a subway. The second doesn't.

Are we seriously having this conversation? Because it is not 1895, it's 2011. Words evolve. Calling something "retarded" carries all sorts of connotations that extend beyond "delay/hinderance/impediment" no matter how badly you don't want them to. Also, there are tons of other words that also evoke delay/hinderance/impediment that are not problematic (like the word "retarded"), so if it's offensive to some people, I'm not really getting why there is this insistance to continue to use it.

Debating word history in this context is completely and totally semantic

Like, if I call something retarded, even if you never heard someone with a low IQ being referred to as a 'retard' you'd still understand what I was saying. That's bc the derogatory term emerges completely from the original meaning. What makes the term offensive is that you're referring to a person w/ a term that implies slowness, or delay -- as though someone with a low IQ is delayed from being a complete person. If you use the term to refer to someone that isn't that person, there should be no offensive element. It may pass through the offensive meaning but it certainly isn't bound by it. I think this is actually pretty intuitive.

Also, there are tons of other words that also evoke delay/hinderance/impediment that are not problematic (like the word "retarded"), so if it's offensive to some people, I'm not really getting why there is this insistance to continue to use it.

i think, like any other slur, it's because of the frisson of provocation to it. the attachment to using it is aesthetic, it feels more stylish than "idiotic" or whatever you might say in its place. but you're totally otm that it should stop.

Like, if I call something retarded, even if you never heard someone with a low IQ being referred to as a 'retard' you'd still understand what I was saying.

c'mon man

Take, for example, this post regarding an argument about the quality of someone's display name

You're case went full retard like 15 posts ago

Please explain to me how this language is remotely acceptable/justified by the history of the word.

i agree, confusing "your" and "you're" is truly unacceptable

LIke, I get that the word used to mean something else/that the current use of the word is still tied to it, but if a very large group of people find it highly offensive (AND if part of the force of the word is tied to its offensiveness), what is so great about it that you feel so strongly the need to continue to use it?

i think, like any other slur, it's because of the frisson of provocation to it. the attachment to using it is aesthetic, it feels more stylish than "idiotic" or whatever you might say in its place. but you're totally otm that it should stop.

― horseshoe, Friday, September 2, 2011 12:42 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think this is the case because i had to analyze my own usage of it, btw. i am working on it!

Let me ask you guys a question: Do you believe the term should never be used in any conversation ever? What if you say, "Following this course of action will retard our ability to address the core problems here." Is the use of the word 'retard' offensive there?

xp Obviously it can still be used offensively. I'm not debating that ppl should have carte blanche to be total dicks to each other. I'm just not a big fan of excising words from the English language bc it's hard to remember that they have non-offensive meanings.

anyway, i think mordy is trying to bait someone into calling him a retard

Let me ask you guys a question: Do you believe the term should never be used in any conversation ever? What if you say, "Following this course of action will retard our ability to address the core problems here." Is the use of the word 'retard' offensive there?

of course not! it is very clear when people are using it offensively and when it is meaningful.

yeah mordy, not sure what your point is there

I don't think it's so clear. If I say that a particular book is "retarded," I'm obviously not saying that it's of low IQ. So what am I saying? It's clear that I'm saying it's of little value, that it can be dismissed, etc. Why do these meanings have more resonance w/ an offensive use of the word than a more literal use of it? xp

I think it evokes enough other meanings to other people, however justified or not, that regardless of how you use it it's going to be somewhat of a "problem word". Like, I'm totally getting that to you the word doesn't have to be offensive and that it's dumb that other people get so easily butthurt about it, but they do, so why not just pick another word? There are so, so many more!

Also the argument that yr having isn't really germane; there is nothing civil about "going full retard"

I think btw that this accounts for why a lot of otherwise very sensitive ppl still use the word in that way. I try not to use it bc I know it stirs up shit and gets ppl upset (and I hate getting language policed anyway), but I think that there's a lot of ppl who intuit a non-offensive meaning in the word.

If I say that a particular book is "retarded," I'm obviously not saying that it's of low IQ

you're suggesting the author is an idiot! you're certainly not suggesting the book is held back or in check; hindered, impeded; delayed, deferred. i don't really get why you're pushing this.

Dude, this is like arguing that me calling a book "gay" to mean "it's of little value, that it can be dismissed, etc." IN NO WAY POSSIBLY AT ALL could be offensive to queer people

Because people use it to mean different things now!! They're not calling GAY people stupid!

can we get a special 24 hour unbanning of frogbs?

okay lol

I actually explained why I think the word retarded and the word gay are different. The offensive meaning of the word retarded emerges naturally from the original meaning of the word such that you can short-circuit the derogatory term by just reasserting the original meaning (ie: it's not capricious that the word retarded came to mean someone of low IQ -- and I'd actually ask you to think about why 'retarded' came to mean someone of low IQ and why that's actually offensive). 'gay' had no negative meaning until it came to refer to homosexuality afaik.

Like if you say something is gay, linguistically you're associating that thing with homosexuality. So what's offensive isn't the word itself, it's the assumption that there's something negative or wrong with being a homosexual. If you say that something is retarded you are saying that it is exactly what the word means! People were called retards because they seemed slow and delayed (and actually were delayed in important developmental ways!). It became offensive bc it had acquired a negative association due to the negative treatment of low IQ ppl in society, but not because the word itself was actually offensive. This is pretty self-evident, I think!

I'd actually ask you to think about why 'retarded' came to mean someone of low IQ and why that's actually offensive.

when someone's arguing with someone else and accuses them of "going full retard" the insult gets its force from conjuring up the image of mentally retarded person as worthy of scorn.

Okay, 'going full retard' is actually a film reference that was itself mocking actors for taking advantage of a particular group of vulnerable ppl in order to show off their acting skills and win hot oscar prizes, so that might be muddying the conversation a bit.

And when someone is arguing with someone else and accuses them of 'being retarded' they are not just conjuring up the image of a mentally retarded person as worthy of scorn, they are conjuring up the image of a mentally retarded person of being intellectually delayed, which is the literal thrust of the ad hominem -- you're trying to say that the person's argument are so bad that they seem to be coming from an intellectually delayed person. Except for the fact that it's distasteful bc it lacks empathy by failing to distinguish between someone born w/ a particular handicap and someone who is just being thoughtless, it's actually expressing exactly what it intends to express.

typos meh

oh right, i forgot that that came from tropic thunder. okay but even in the example where someone calls a book "retarded," which is frankly not the most precise word for what is meant, it's still the force of the invocation of mocking the developmentally disabled. a paler echo of it than if the person were then to move their body in the way someone who suffered from cerebral palsy might, but it's on a continuum with that behavior.

i feel like you're ignoring the social context of retard jokes, i.e. middle school.

mordy, you're right about "full retard", but the larger point that stevie is making is that 'tropic thunder' could get away with saying "full retard" but they probably couldn't have said "full faggot", and even if they had, ppl that quote or have quoted "full retard" (including myself!) would not be quoting "full faggot" (well, maybe i could, but that's really muddying the convo). also when ppl quote "full retard" they're not using it in the same way that it was used in the movie, they're using it to basically say "extra retarded". the general point that ppl shouldn't be able to get away when using "retard" derogatorily is a correct one.

When you move your body in the way someone who suffered from cerebral palsy might, what is insensitive is that you're playing up the handicap for laughs. Obviously if you're playing someone w/ cerebral palsy in a dramatic film where you're trying to treat the subject w/ empathy and bring the condition to the attention of ppl who might otherwise be unaware, that movement has a different meaning than if you call it 'acting like a spaz' and do it in the middle of a golf tournament. I wouldn't say it's the same continuum at all.

When you move your body in the way someone who suffered from cerebral palsy might, what is insensitive is that you're playing up the handicap for laughs.

the same impulse is behind the use of "retarded" to mean "obnoxiously stupid" when someone says, "this book is retarded."

Ok, let me reframe my argument more anthropologically bc right now I feel like I'm arguing for the right of assholes to call whoever they want retards without regard to ppl's feelings and I don't feel that way. I think it's important to be sensitive and I don't really want to make a moral argument. Let me just say that what I'm trying to argue about the meaning of the term and its place linguistically is why I think it's going to be much harder to stamp out the use of the word 'retard' than other offensive terms (like the ones used to restart the thread) and why I think despite some very public campaigns to try and curtail it, even generally very sensitive ppl find themselves using it.

Obviously if you're playing someone w/ cerebral palsy in a dramatic film where you're trying to treat the subject w/ empathy and bring the condition to the attention of ppl who might otherwise be unaware, that movement has a different meaning than if you call it 'acting like a spaz' and do it in the middle of a golf tournament. I wouldn't say it's the same continuum at all.

― Mordy, Friday, September 2, 2011 1:05 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

wouldn't say what's on the same continuum? playing a person with cerebral palsy in a movie and mocking a person with cerebral palsy by imitating them in the playground? of course not, i didn't suggest that they were!

So what you're saying is that people are incorrect to be offended by it, and that attempting to insult someone by comparing them to a developmentally disabled individual is the proper and correct usage of the word and thus OK?

No, I wouldn't say that mocking a person with cp is on the same continuum as calling something retarded, since the way they are supposedly offensive operates differently.

Let me ask the question differently: If you say a book is 'retarded,' and you mean that in a hyperbolic way you feel like it is intellectually delayed like a low IQ person, but you don't include scorn (outside any inherent scorn in not privileging the quality of writing that someone with a low IQ might produce -- which might be a totally different conversation ie: how we treat low IQ ppl in society), why is it offensive to a low IQ person?

Also the whole "Well they said it in the movie so it's OK for me to say too because I'm just reffing that!!" is a totally shit argument.

Like, is the problem with calling something retarded that you're implying that things of low intellectual quality have less value? Bc I think most ilxors actually believe that things of low intellectual quality have less value! xp

Stevie, if you think that's my argument you should reread what I wrote bc that definitely isn't it.

even generally very sensitive ppl find themselves using it.

― Mordy, Friday, September 2, 2011 1:06 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i just think you're wrong abuot this. i am going to flatter myself that i'm a "generally very sensitive" person, though what i mean by that is more extremely self-righteous and quick to jump on others for offensive remarks/behavior. but i used "retarded" from time to time in the offensive sense and eventually had to ask myself why i was doing it, and it was a mixture of lack of sensitivity because the problem of how the developmentally disabled are mistreated hadn't hit me personally and an aesthetic attachment to using it precisely because it's kind of off-color. it was punchier than calling something dumb. i am really, really not proud of this.

Also the whole "Well they said it in the movie so it's OK for me to say too because I'm just reffing that!!" is a totally shit argument.

― The-Dreams That Money Can Buy (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, September 2, 2011 1:12 AM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark

well this is largely true, but the specific use of "full retard" has a potentially non-offensive connotation, like if you say "full retard" to mean that someone is "going over the top in an embarrassing way in order to win praise", in which case you'd be comparing them to ben stiller's character in the film and not an actual retarded person

No, I wouldn't say that mocking a person with cp is on the same continuum as calling something retarded, since the way they are supposedly offensive operates differently.

you are making me crazy! you know the way bullies might mock a retarded kid? or call something retarded and than make spastic gestures with their bodies? calling something "retarded" without the spastic gestures is on the same continuum as the first thing. saying the usage of "retarded" Stevie D is talking about isn't rooted in that social context is crazy to me.

i can think of one word to describe this argument

clusterfuck bait is two words

I hate to be "that" guy, but after you have a kid, you have a whole new appreciation for what words like these mean and how dumb and selfish it is to pepper your speech with these words for cheap laughs. Life's too short guys.

I hate to be "that" guy, but I have a kid. So thx for your appeal to authority but I'm gonna pass.

Anyway, I think anything I had to say on this issue I've said. I hate when I just start repeating myself so... whatevs.

Only retards repeat themselves. It's cool.

Sometimes I need to use a synonym for the word dumb that means 'most dumb' but the only word that comes to my head is 'retarded'. Regrettably, I've dropped the R-bomb a couple times when I couldn't find a more accurate word. I had no intention of ever relating the person/idea/belief that I called retarded to any mentally challenged people

-

If you say nigger you are associating that word with a black dude
If you say faggot you are associating that word with a gay dude
If you say retarded you might just be associating that word with a really idiotic person/idea/belief as if retarded isn't defined to only include mentally challenged people

(iirc, I rarely use 'retarded')

Off-topic but I was googling around for common arguments for why the term is offensive and came upon this:

The casual use of the word “retarded” is no less offensive for involved families than the “N” word is to African-Americans, the “J” word to Jewish people or the “F” word is to Gay people.

Ok, I have no idea what the offensive "J" word is and I'm really curious now!

lorax since you think 9/11 was an inside job, i think it's actually socially acceptable for you to call other people 'retards'

Jesus? Cause I guess that's kinda offensive to Orthodox Jews...

one thing i learned when i was like 9 years old was that it's totally cool to exclaim "jesus christ!" around a bunch of jews but it's not necessarily cool around non-jews

lorax since you think 9/11 was an inside job, i think it's actually socially acceptable for you to call other people 'retards'

― J0rdan S.

I don't claim that 9/11 was an inside job (I haven't made a claim on who the mastermind culprits are if you had paid any attention). Plus, 9/11 doesn't need to be brought up anytime I post in a non-9/11-related thread

omg i exclaimed "jesus christ!" in a class once, and afterward my raised-Catholic friend laughed at me and pointed out that i had been sitting next to a woman with ashes on her forehead for ash wednesday. maybe i'm not "generally very sensitive."

I do sometimes wonder if the obsession over language use is about exposing implicit bigotry that bubbles out linguistically or if it's a way of diverting attention from systematic/institutional bigotry by focusing on speech instead of actions. Not that I think the latter implies a conspiracy but that it's much easier to fret over offending people with the words we use than examining the social structures that often make those people vulnerable in the first place.

Of course, ideally do both!

i think that's a false opposition. also really don't buy that people using the word "retarded" to mock movies they didn't like or whatever are spending their free time examining the social structures that marginalize the developmentally disabled.

xp

Don't buy it -- I wasn't selling it.

people using 'retarded' know the risk of offending someone but use it anyways.. as if they still couldn't find a better word

i think i used 'retarded' on ilx recently. apologies etc

(srs post)

Pretty sure "the J word" is using Jew as a verb, like "Jewed him down to twenty bucks" for instance.

So I mean if you're cool with that

I'll admit, I'm even unclear on how "retarded" is less sensitive than the word "handicapped" being as how they both imply the same thing (being developmentally delayed). Is it just that enough people started using it cruelly instead of medically and so it took on an offensive tinge? If ppl start using handicapped cruelly, will we be hunting for a new synonymous word in the future to mean the same thing but without the tinge?

I think you can even strongly believe that no one should ever use the word "retarded" in any context and still see how it's a really confusing word and much trickier than comparable offensive words.

Well I mean, you don't have people derogatorily telling other people they're "so fucking handicapped" like you do with "so fucking retarded". You ask " Is it just that enough people started using it cruelly instead of medically and so it took on an offensive tinge?" and I think that the answer is yes, it is. It all goes back to the point I was trying to make about language evolution. Right now, the word in certain usage is highly offensive to people, and its roots/history/etc are totally irrelevant because as horseshoe noted, there are social contexts that give it a tremendous amount of weight.

Also, I'm not getting upset at, like, the usage of the term "flame-retardant" or something, I'm getting upset that people are trying to insult people/things by calling them retarded.

You do see how that's circular though, right? To the question of why it's offensive, the answer that it's bc ppl are offended by it doesn't really satisfy. Or rather, it's a good answer if the question is, "should I use this word?" Bc then you can say, "No, bc ppl are offended by it." But if the question is why ppl are offended by it, you're trying to hand wave that away.

that's not what he said! "retarded" as an insult implies scorn for the mentally retarded.

why does it imply scorn for the mentally retarded?

It's fair game to ask why things are the way they are. Generally the answers to those questions are really illuminating! If you ask why the word "faggot" is offensive and someone tells you it's because it originally referred to old woman who carried bundles of sticks around and ppl were trying to draw a parallel between homosexuality and menopausal femininity, you have so much to unpack. It tells you something about how homosexuals were stigmatized, about fundamental social issues, about all kinds of things. If the answer tho is that it's bc ppl are offended by it you've got pretty much nothing but social agreement about what words to use and avoid. But no insight.

c'mon yo

because it actually makes no sense to call a movie "retarded." the point of the usage is to express your contempt for the movie by invoking contempt for the mentally retarded. even if you aren't consciously thinking about it when you say it. it's embedded in the usage.

did kids not tell retard jokes at your middle school or what the fuck

no, not really so much

From what I understand the issue is that it is strongly associated with particular medical attitudes towards mentally delayed patients in the 50s and 60s and though the medical establishment matured wrt those patients, that word maintained the connotation. But I actually don't know if that's entirely true and if it is, I think it opens up a bunch of different problems (like in what way does a word like handicapped not stigmatize those patients in similar ways).

Another example: The word schvartze is a derogatory Yiddish way of referring to a black person. The word isn't inherently derogatory - it literally means the color 'black' and if you take Yiddish classes at YiVo you'll learn to say 'the black pen' by using the word. But it has a derogatory context bc some American Jews who otherwise never spoke in Yiddish used the word to refer to black ppl in a coded way so they could share racist statements without being overt about it.

The reason words are offensive today has little to do with what they used to mean in the past, though. If you call me a faggot I'm not going to get mad because you're threatening my masculinity or some shit, I'm going to get mad because it refers to me with a great deal of contempt.

I disagree. You can refer to someone with a great deal of contempt and not use any offensive words at all. These words are particularly offensive bc they carry w/ them certain taboos and those taboos are buried in the histories of the words and their implicit meanings. You may not think of masculinity if someone calls you a "faggot," and the person saying it may not have masculinity on the top of their minds, but questions of masculinity + femininity in homosexuality have not disappeared just bc they're unconscious.

I do recognize that you could believe otherwise -- that these words are just offensive bc they offend ppl and there's nothing else going on. I guess in that case you probably voted for text in the text/subtext poll.

I do find it kind of interesting that it's this particular word that's become so offensive and not, say, "dumb" which you could view as similarly perjorative.
Would it also be offensive to say that something someone says resembles the speech of someone with a psychological disorder? Is it only offensive when the mental slowness (or disorder, or whatever) referred to is due to something we can class as a medical condition, rather than just being 'stupid'?
Or does this have nothing to do with it and we should just respect that's it's offensive and can't become otherwise?
Thinking out loud here, not really arguing one side or another.

shawn merriman is a fucking retard

I said this on another thread but I have been on forums where people have aggresively told others off for using even words like "dumb", for being "abelist".

did kids not tell retard jokes at your middle school or what the fuck

― horseshoe, Friday, September 2, 2011 2:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

mordy how do you feel about 'spaz'

holy shit @ Mordy in this thread

I'll admit, I'm even unclear on how "retarded" is less sensitive than the word "handicapped" being as how they both imply the same thing (being developmentally delayed)

are you unclear on how "nigger" is less sensitive than "black person" being as how they both imply the same thing, a person of color?

as you might say, i want you to ask yourself that question

mordy can you think of a way to use 'retard' as an adjective or a noun without it being offensive

Let me ask the question differently: If you say a book is 'retarded,' and you mean that in a hyperbolic way you feel like it is intellectually delayed like a low IQ person, but you don't include scorn

i mean.. how can you just DECIDE to not "include" scorn when you use the word "retarded" in its slang sense? again, it's as if you're suggesting you can use the word "nigger" without "including" the scorn that word carries with it as a result of its usage down the years

srsly - i mean, 'spastic' originally just referred to a kind of muscle movement, so if i were to say "ugh, you're spazzing out", would i only be saying "your actions are redolent of involuntary muscle tightening"? I don't think I would. I'd be using a playground insult for people with cerebral palsy in order to insult you - and so reaffirming the original insult.

(and I hate getting language policed anyway),

(xposts)

(xpost)

the "language police" parenthetical is the key to Mordy's whole thing, i think

Also, Mordy, 'handicapped' doesn't only refer to people with developmental disabilities - it covers pretty much the whole range of physical and developmental disabilities.

i think the common use of these words as a shorthand to convey the contempt stevie refers to upthread makes them very difficult to use in any other context.

I think the real issue here is that mordy has never been called a retard by a 10 year old bully before? it's pretty hurtful when you're 10 years old. also worth nothing that the 'legitimate' definition from which the current insult comes from refers only to the verb form of the word. I don't know of any usage of the adjective 'retarded' or noun 'you're a retard' form that doesn't reference the offensive meaning.

when no one's looking, I call one of my wife's chihuahuas "faggot" even though he is probably more like clinically retarded. i dont feel comfortable going either route with him really. I need a good playground-level contemptuous word. maybe something in spanish that he could really understand?

it's not really hurtful when you're 10 yrs old, tbh. Or, at least, it really does depend on the ten yr old. Retard, spaz etc you wouldn't have blinked an eye at in any school playground i attended

idk i wasn't ever called any of these and i still think they're horrible - for me it betokens such a lazy culture of contempt.

not relevant to the discussion, except maybe as an indication of how meaning evolves: spastic is the adjective from spasm

Retard, spaz etc you wouldn't have blinked an eye at in any school playground i attended

maybe you should have?

i mean maybe not the 10 yr olds but it's pretty much the responsibility of whichever adults are in charge to stamp that shit out, nip it in the bud

feelin horseshoe on this thread btw, have used "retard" unthinkingly myself - it doesn't seem as instinctively cuttingly offensive as perhaps it should (a UK thing?), but it's become something i flinch a little bit at whenever i see it used - it's totally possible to train yourself out of that unthinking usage

mordy himself admits that he tries to avoid using the word so he's really just being pedantic to no discernable end, gg on defending your abled privilege

another Quality Posting Sesh from my mans mords

that doesn't really work though - when you're a kid, won't it just increase the appeal of an insult to have adults telling you to stop using it? it takes growing old enough for empathy to work out what you're actually doing.

xpost, that was to lex

xxp lex- was really just answering dao as to the level of comprehension you'd have of the meanings of these terms as a ten year old. Adults using or condoning it is totally different

unthinking, nasty usage i am having a surprising amount of difficulty excising from my mental vocabulary: "i feel gypped that [foo]"

i really think it's something wrong with me that that is the first word my brain reaches for to express that feeling.

fair point, darragh, but still the meaning that kids mean when they use it on the playground does derive from the offensive connotation, and it's not like that offensive connotation suddenly goes away when you use it after you turn 18

that doesn't really work though - when you're a kid, won't it just increase the appeal of an insult to have adults telling you to stop using it? it takes growing old enough for empathy to work out what you're actually doing.

not just TELLING kids not to use it. instil fear. make them know it's taboo. some of the most effective methods i've heard for stamping out taboo words from other adults (and myself, i guess) = the knowledge that if you said the n word, even more than "fuck" or whatever, you would get THRASHED for it. which usually lays the groundwork for the empathy later.

whaaaaaaa

dude, i am glad you aren't planning to have kids.

lol savagely beat your children until theyre crying and peeing, to lay the groundwork for empathy

pretty much all my examples are people who grew up in non-white families. cf chinese tiger mother

i'm quite glad i'm not going to have kids too!

XD "thrashed" omg.

i'd batter my kids just to be safe, tbh, kind of an irish cultural thing. Fuckin ignorant micks

being made to skateboard for using offensive language doesn't sound like punishment to me!

xp being deep-fried does though. you savage, darragh!

i am glad to say that my personal groundwork for empathy was laid not by corporal punishment, but by the relentless application of social pressure and shame.

what if we all agreed to just say "retreaded" instead?

retweeted

hoisted by my own retard.

noting this down for future use

― lex pretend, Thursday, 14 July 2011 13:58 (1 month ago)

thats so reet petite.

actually my strongest negative imprinting as a kid was my mum and dad arguing about how to deal with something one of dad's work colleagues had said to me (we lived in the place mum and dad worked, which was an educational charity)

a: it was the mid-60s in rural england, i was about 5, and had said something stupid, i believe about football (so no change there)
b: this guy, who i liked and actually rather admired (HE HAD A BEARD! shut up i was FIVE!) had affectionately teased me and called me a "c00n"
c: i asked mum or dad what a "c00n" was
d: they had -- not entirely unjustifiably -- had an argument over whether this guy had meant to be racist, since the racist aspect of the insult made zero sense in context
e: but they were both very upset and angry, and how to be VERY CROSS with the grown-up i admired was very much on the table
f: THEN THEY THRASHED HIM then i don't actually know how it was resolved, but clearly it all struck deep

strongest conscious negative imprinting, i should say

so reepicheep.

I don't think I ever used the word retarded (or rather, a similar dutch word) when I was younger. I really cringe when I hear kids - mostly boys - shout "YOU HOMO" to some other kid. I want to reprimand them on the spot. I really really dislike it. But I don't do it to other kids, only my kids and their friends (when they are at our house).
That said, kids do not (yet) realize how bad it is to throw such words around. It's up to the adults to correct them.

instil fear.

Yeah, nothing like it. *sigh* I do think it is right to fear your parents a little, but on the whole that is not the correct way of teaching your kids correct word usage.

tend to assume that pseudy racialist anthropologist carleton coon chose his vocation after a childhood of merciless teasing for his name

mordy himself admits that he tries to avoid using the word so he's really just being pedantic to no discernable end, gg on defending your abled privilege

forgot how high stakes conversations on ilx are. dumbass.

see also the probably made-up story about the hilarious misunderstanding that ensued when Jimi Hendrix was introduced to UK music journo Caroline Coon

"DJ Mencap"

pretty sure no one in my school said "retarded" (i thought only Americans said it)

we used many other words though.

are you unclear on how "nigger" is less sensitive than "black person" being as how they both imply the same thing, a person of color?

After reflecting on the responses I got on this thread, it occurs to me that most ppl (or at least the ppl I'm interacting with here) have a different hermeneutics of the word "retarded" than I do. If it is comparable to the n-word that must mean that it is a word that is inherently offensive due to many years of being used as a derogatory way of referring to people of a particularly vulnerable group. If your experience of it is primarily in the context of schoolyard taunts, etc, I can get why it would feel that way. Like I mentioned above that's not an experience I strongly link to the word -- when I hear it it's in the context of either the etymological root or the medical root.

Maybe more importantly, if I read horseshoe correctly, the other possibility is that it's comparable to the word 'gay,' whereas whenever you use it, you're implying that something is bad, thereby implying that mental retardation is bad. I'm being totally honest when I say that again -- that's not my experience of the word. My experience of it is that when you call something "retarded" you are not saying it's bad in some vague way. You're specifically degrading its intelligence. I don't know how better to put this in English but it's more like calling two men kissing 'gay.' The comparison is literal, not metaphorical (or maybe a simile, not a metaphor?). But I get that the vast majority of people don't feel this way and since I share the world w/ those ppl, I'll be sensitive to the listening for the word.

I think the point I was trying to stumble into last night was that the word functions differently that these other derogatory words. If after reading everything I wrote you think I was just defending my - I guess - 'ableist' privilege, then I apologize. I was really trying to sort out the meaning of the word and why it is offensive. While I was chatting on ILX I was simultaneously googling around to find dozens of (mostly poorly formed) arguments for why it's offensive so that I could sort it out. I apologize if my clumsy way of going about that offended anyone. It certainly wasn't my intent.

is there a website yet where people can vote on relative offensiveness of words yet? like hot or not but with *giggle* naughty words? if not, i'm starting it

For what it's worth, general policy at the K-8 school where I teach (i.e., gathered from observation, not specifically written down anywhere): N-word = serious repercussions; various derogatory words for girls = serious repercussions; "gay"/F-word = moving towards serious repercussions, but still not quite there; "retard" = not really an issue yet. If a hear a student say the latter myself in the pejorative sense, I make it clear it's not acceptable.

Kudos to lex for managing to work in the most o_O post itt, even after Mordy's run of incomprehensible stupidity.

is "cow" one of the serious repercussion words for girls?

Hasn't really come up...I don't want to list them, but the three or four most flagrant should be obvious.

I'm sorry for being incomprehensibly stupid :/

You know that feeling where you'd having an argument and you think the points you're making are really interesting and well reasoned and then the next morning you're like, 'I probably just insulted a bunch of ppl to satiate boredom/curiosity?' Yeah. I think next time I feel compelling to have a conversation like this I'll just read Derek Parfit instead.

compelled*

being called incomprehensibly stupid vs being called retarded.

Yep, those two are exactly the same and carry exactly the same kind of bagger, you're right.

even after Mordy's run of incomprehensible stupidity.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0

wow, you have a problem with ppl using the word 'retard' as derogatory but you have no problem attacking someone who has been calmly, politely and rationally trying to have a conversation about something.

i don't think mordy has been 'pedanctic for no discernible reason', either - dude is just trying to talk it out, guess he didn't realise this thread is only for ppl who completely agree with stevie d.

I missed this thread yesterday, and quickly skimmed back this morning. While I'm on the other side of the disagreement than you are--i.e., I get very queasy when I hear "retard" tossed around--your posts seemed far from stupid. Seemed you were working through your thoughts on something, which is fine.

ITT white ILXors relish the opportunity to use the N-word

jesus christ, you white guys

Oh sorry I missed the memo where we switched into defend Mordy mode.

The memo? Geez.

I mean, leave it to ilxors to consider the guy who uses the word "stupid" to be worse than someone itt tossing around "retard", the n-word, and talking about beating children.

I mean, come the fuck on you guys.

My stupid comment was a little ott, but I think Mordy was also willfully stirring shit up, no matter how innocently he's trying to play it off this morning.

I can't speak for just1n3, even though we regularly exchange memos, but I wasn't attacking you--wasn't even thinking about you. I was just defending someone's right to work through their thoughts, and to do so, yes, "calmly, politely and rationally."

I don't think I'm "playing it off" innocently. I said " 'I probably just insulted a bunch of ppl to satiate boredom/curiosity?'" Obviously I was stirring shit up! It doesn't mean I wasn't also trying to be thoughtful and polite about it. xp

The last time I legit lolled at "retard" was when our high school gym class did a camping trip, (it was an elective called "adventure ed," we also did rock climbing) and we are all sitting quietly around the campfire listening to the teacher (or as quietly as 60 hs students can ) when at the neighboring campsite some twelve year old shouts "YOU FORGOT THE NAPKINS?? YOU ARE A REEE-TARD!" at his friend

Oh I'm sorry, you're the guy that "politely" condones using the r-word. My bad, carry on.

i mean, leave it to ilxors to get on your case for insulting people who are engaging in rational discussion.

Jesus fucking christ.

This fucking place.

when no one's looking, I call one of my wife's chihuahuas "faggot"
--esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz)

VIVA GORDITAS!

So if I "thoughtfully" and "rationally" start justifying the use of offensive words, its cool? Good to know.

wait, we can't say "cunt"?

If you thoughtfully justify you it you can.

I honestly don't want to take up someone else's argument, least of all when I'm on the other side--the same side as you--but I think his original point was that he thought in this instance it was a greyer area, and he proceeded from there. If you start from where you and I are, and don't allow that possibility, then yes, it's a semantic game. But as I read through the thread, it didn't feel like that to me.

only in the context of "that's a cunt's hair away from..." to indicate close distance or similarity.

I admitted my "stupid" comment was over the top and it wasn't really warranted. Its just, I don't know, rmde, when I suddenly get turned on for calling someone "stupid" after all of the crap thats been spewed itt. Let's not call anyone out for gratuitous use of the "n-word", but YOU CROSSED THE LINE AT "STUPID" is like o_O.

Dan Perry otm, about u whites psyched to say the n-word

This thread def would not have played out like that if we lived in lex pretends town where every black person is a hulking, irrational he-man ready to dole out a thrashing

burnin popocorn 2k11

i used "retarded" yesterday :/

i was told by courthouse security that while i could bring in my laptop, i could not bring its power cable. no cables of any kind allowed in Shelby County courthouse. it slipped out. even though i sensed tacit approval from the security guard, i felt bad about it.

my fave rhetorical tactic is, "so you're saying if i ______________ then that means that i can ____________???"

yes, that is exactly what i was saying. resume your REALLY LOUD smacking of your head in disbelief at what i was saying.

read the definiton of one "sarcasm", asshat

my coworker sent this email to many important department heads and he meant "thank you for your promptness at the meeting yesterday" but due to a vocabulary failure he said "thank you for you tardiness" - it caused a real furor amongst bitter people here with no sense of humour

This thread def would not have played out like that if we lived in lex pretends town where every black person is a hulking, irrational he-man ready to dole out a thrashing

for someone who makes a living from words you seem to have difficulty comprehending those of other people (but no difficulty in imputing offensive shit about what they say)

Pretty sure talking about "thrashing" a child is never not offensive.

my fave rhetorical tactic is, "so you're saying if i ______________ then that means that i can ____________???"

You must have loved the post that started this iteration of the conversation:

I've been noticing people using "retard" and "retarded" a lot on ILX. I was thinking we could also bring back things like "cunt", "faggot", and "nigger"; I know they're a little more powerful, but I think they're all really effective at getting our points across in ways that other words really can't.

― The-Dreams That Money Can Buy (Stevie D(eux)), Friday, September 2, 2011 12:08 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I mean, leave it to ilxors to consider the guy who uses the word "stupid" to be worse than someone itt tossing around "retard", the n-word, and talking about beating children.

You know me and Lex are not the same person, right? I tossed around the word "retard" bc that's the name of the thread and topic of discussion. I didn't use the n-word or talk about beating children, but good way to aggregate all the offensive shit into one post so it sounds like you're being unfairly targeted while some n-word dropping, child beating, r-word using asshole gets off free.

Pretty sure Alex was talking about big hulking irrational he-man Chinese, jon/via/chi.

Mordy, I was citing specific examples, guess I should have taken the care and time to properly attribute them. I'll work on that for next time.

He-woman, because lets not discriminate on the basis of gender when irrationality comes into play.

I got really offended yesterday after my housemate Jaffrey had passed me the bong and then accused me of "bogarting" it. To make matters far worse, he was burning some brand of incense he brought home from Spencer's Gifts called "Gay Pussy". I think he was doing it ironically, too??

Pretty sure talking about "thrashing" a child is never not offensive.

O. K. Come. On. The act is offensive. The idea of it may even be offensive. But no words used in the sentence are inherently offensive except in their combined meaning. So that is not actually the same thing at all. Thank u for playing.

Hi, everybody!

***needle scratch*** wait. "bogarting" is offensive?

But no words used in the sentence are inherently offensive except in their combined meaning.

way to undercut your own argument

thread got good.

DJP, iyo can the n-word ever be discussed by white people, in say the 'merely wondering' spirit in which Mordy was musing about 'retard'?

Genuine non snark q from y'know completely sheltered rural european dude so don't be afraid to tell me stfu if even that much is offensive or whatever.

The context was offensive, you don't just get to conveniently ignore that.

(xpost)

i wanted mordy to feel the full weight of the n-word, in relation to his argument that one could pick and choose the constituent history of a word, and simply omit (in one's mind) the parts one didn't like; prob not necessary to use it in its full regalia though. sorry dudes (am definitely never "psyched" to use it!!)

***needle scratch*** wait. "bogarting" is offensive?

trust me, the way Jaffrey said it, it was

tbh i felt like that saleswoman at Marshall's who got "wilded" by those teenagers who were high on Larry Clark movies and diatetic Ring Dings

The context was offensive, you don't just get to conveniently ignore that.

I'm thinking about conveniently ignoring something!

Sorry tracer, but that's prima facie ridiculous. You were using the n-word to make a pathos argument so that I was shamed into not discussing the meaning + constituent history of the other word? There's no intellectual value in that.

Like, what, it's okay to use the n-word if you're trying to make someone feel bad about hearing it?

Wait wait, can we go back to Laurel's argument here? Because I'm still struggling with parsing what she's saying. I'm pretty sure that individual words that are not offensive in isolation can be combined in a way to convey an offensive idea.

DJP, iyo can the n-word ever be discussed by white people, in say the 'merely wondering' spirit in which Mordy was musing about 'retard'?

The N-word can be discussed by anyone in whatever context they want. I, personally, will find some of them offensive, one example being where you are pretending to show off how enlightened you are about some other form of offensive behavior by dropping it all over the place like it was candy. It doesn't make your point any more valid and it is actively offensive/alienating to other people who might otherwise want to actively contribute to the conversation.

xp: Thanks, Tracer. Oddly, I was less offended by your post than I was by Stevie's. (Or maybe not so oddly; I know you better.)

i was using the n-word Mordy so that you could feel it in your gut that yes, some words are super-offensive even if you imagine in your own mind that you are not using it in an offensive way.

some of the most effective methods i've heard for stamping out taboo words from other adults (and myself, i guess) = the knowledge that if you said the n word, even more than "fuck" or whatever, you would get THRASHED for it

I mean, I can't be the only one offended by the intent behind this post.

and i totally believe you that you don't have that gut feeling with the r-word! but i think at some point you are going to need to acknowledge what the vast majority of people in this thread are saying, which by my lights should carry a lot more weight in your thinking on this subject than etymology does

thks dan

um Tracer, it maybe would have been more effective to use a word that would actually describe Mordy, if that's your rhetorical gambit

This applies to this whole thread pretty much, but I don't think its ever a good look to pass judgment on what someone else might take offense at.

I was never arguing that some words aren't super-offensive tho! You're arguing w/ someone who says that 'words can't hurt' but no one is making that argument. Also -- I accept (and have accepted from the beginning) that the vast majority of ppl in this thread, and possibly even a majority off the thread, feel that this work is offensive, so you're making cases responding to arguments that aren't being made all over the place.

I mean, I can't be the only one offended by the intent behind this post.

The intent behind that post = teach children in no uncertain terms that racist words are not okay

xp to Tracer

The intent behind that post = teach children in no uncertain terms that racist words are not okay

Okay thats willfully ignoring the part of the post where he says "some of the most effective ways" are through the threat of physical abuse.

wasn't one of Mordy's points that it might be productive (toward social justice) to think about why a word (like the one this thread is about) is offensive? He remarks that the term this thread is about refers to someone who is intellectually or physically delayed or disabled. I remember how the term was used as an insult in middle school: because it was judged bad to be intellectually or physically delayed or disabled. One of Mordy's points above was: most of us think that being intellectually delayed or disabled is bad; so is it just the *context* of middle school that means we should avoid the term this thread is about? Is our policing this term simply meant to distinguish *us* from middle school savages? Or are we really trying to be more sensitive to the intellectually or physically delayed or disabled? In the case of intellectual delay/disability we seem on ILX pretty ok with those being bad. You might say: but people who are born this way don't deserve to be thought of as bad. But everyone's born with different degrees of intellectual ability, so is it just below some key level of intellectual ability that you no longer think of that as bad? If so that's cool---I haven't used this term as an insult since middle school so I have no stake in this particular debate---but it might be hard to draw that line, & maybe that's why some otherwise sensitive people slip into its usage.

Wrt physical disability: ILX seems pretty happy to insult overweight people all the time, & uses lots of slurs toward them. Is the difference the perception that the overweight have it in their control to be thin, unlike the developmentally delayed? and that lack of self-control means that insulting slurs are ok?

I haven't used this term as an insult since middle school

dude what

huh? I confess that I used the term that this thread is about as an insult when I was 11.

Okay thats willfully ignoring the part of the post where he says "some of the most effective ways" are through the threat of physical abuse.

No, it isn't. Not all corporeal punishment is physical abuse and conflation of the two is one of the dumbest things about liberal thought.

He used the word "thrashing"!

Mordy i would respond to you but i'm not sure how.

as i said before i think a major issue for you here is your idea that there is a "language police" that is oppressing you, or annoying you, or something. i'm not sure how to put this, but i think it would be salutary to avoid this sort of thinking

xpost Euler, people use the word "retarded" to describe things they don't like on THIS VERY BOARD all the time

He used the word "thrashing"!

So fucking what? Some kids do things that deserve a thrashing.

I shoplifted when I was six. Both of my college-educated parents (one of whom is a chemistry PhD) whipped me with a belt. I never shoplifted again. Wanna retroactively call Social Services on them?

OK jvc is shooting for the best dad award, I think, and Dan is hardmanning about child-rearing and I am I don't even know what, shit-stirring probably, and this thread is like Issues on Parade.

this is like the nominitive determinism of threads.

Tracer I know; I haven't used it in a long time & outside of ILX I haven't heard the term used this way since then.

There's a whole world of difference between corporal punishment for something like shoplifting and for teaching your children about hurtful words.

djp you really never shoplifted again solely b/c of the memory of your parents whipping you?? talk about "conflating"...

I also fucking hate the "my parents hit me and I'm better for it" excuse.

By saying that, you show that you don't understand the impact of racial slurs on the people targeted by them.

xp: fuck you forever

I mean I'm not saying there is never a time or place for spanking your children, I'm just saying I STRONGLY disagree with the threat of it as a tool for teaching children about how words can be hurtful.

xp: fuck you forever

lol me?

as i said before i think a major issue for you here is your idea that there is a "language police" that is oppressing you, or annoying you, or something. i'm not sure how to put this, but i think it would be salutary to avoid this sort of thinking

lol, I don't think I'm being personally oppressed. I do think that people are very uncomfortable around language like this, even when discussed academically. I think tho that's it's good to talk about this kind of stuff in a open and intelligible way and I don't think shouting ppl down for being offensive is better than engaging with their ways of thinking. I don't think it's personal. 'Language policing' is something that happens all over the place -- both with derogatory language and political language. It is done throughout the political spectrum and it is pretty harmful imho to discourse. I am NOT saying, "lol i wanna say what i want why u gotta hate' or 'fuck those PC assholes I'll insult whoever I want.' I think it's important to watch for people's feelings and I think one great result of the PC movement in the 90s was that people became more sensitive about their speech. But I think some ppl, and ppl on this thread, and you in particular, have decided that some words are out of bounds for use -- even when the use is discussing their use and out-of-boundness! I'm not a fan of throwing around cruel words to get a vicarious thrill out of them but I don't think the question: "Why is this word offensive?" is off-limits.

Yeah not sure who DJP was directing that one at.

wow, dunning meet kruger

By the end of this thread like 80% of ilx is going to hate each other.

Posted from a different ILX thread, but maybe germane (and certainly funny): http://beta.glitch.com/forum/general/6753/

wow, dunning meet kruger

I hope you're not referring to me!

I mean, as fun as this is, I think all of us, myself included, are getting a little too amped up on this.

I'm sincerely apologizing to Mordy for calling him "incomprehensibly stupid", that wasn't called for at all.

Nowadays kids don't get beat, they get big treats
Fresh pair of sneaks, punishments is like "have a seat"

Do you guys think Burzum was hit as a kid?

By the end of this thread like 80% of ilx is going to hate each other.

i think what contributes to threads like this being so contentious is that people want so badly to be "right" or not to be viewed as a shitty person. which is a little silly, to me. i hang out with people who say (what are to me) objectionable things all the time, and if i'm honest with myself i have all sorts of prejudices floating around my skull. everyone is flawed and fucked up, i mean i can speak my mind and all, but i'm not going to throw my silverware across the table at a dinner party and storm out of the room or wahtever when ppl say espouse confused ideas. bad approach imo

White, grew up in the '60s. My father didn't use the N-word, but definitely said things typical of the slightly more casual racism of his day. And yet, somehow--maybe it was my mother's influence, I don't know--my parents very clearly imparted to me by the time I was 6 that said word was absolutely off-limits, and that lesson stayed with me to the point where--well, nearing 50, I can't even bring myself to type it on an anonymous message board. Corporeal punishment or the threat of such were not involved in any way. So not to question DJP's own background, everybody comes from a different place, but based on my own experience, you can impart that message other ways.

I shoplifted when I was six. Both of my college-educated parents (one of whom is a chemistry PhD) whipped me with a belt. I never shoplifted again. Wanna retroactively call Social Services on them?

this happened to my sister (well, can't remember if a belt was involved or not); if i'd shoplifted it would assuredly have happened to me too; i totally agree with dan that conflating corporal punishment and child abuse is DUMB; in the cases of most people i know who were raised w/it, it certainly wasn't a regular thing, in fact it was rare, but the threat of it was always existent; i would class using hate speech alongside shoplifting as a thing that deserves corporal punishment. think of it as "mirroring what will happen to you if you say that word as an adult to the wrong people".

obviously i know that attitudes to corporal punishment vary but i'm astonished that anyone could be offended by the idea of it. imo it works. though that's moot as i'm not gonna have children.

i think we'd have been thrashed if either of us had used the n word, too, though that never had to be put to the test

What did you shoplift, Dan? I only ask because I deeply respect your taste in stuff and want to go out and take one for myself on my lunchbreak.

it was a jar jar binks sticky tongue toy

Lex I genuinely think you need to spend more time in the real world if you are truly "astonished" that people might be offended by the idea of hitting children.

I mean there's some grey area between punishing your child for shoplifting and threatening to hit them because they are too young to understand that the r-word might be hurtful.

ppl on this thread, and you in particular, have decided that some words are out of bounds for use -- even when the use is discussing their use and out-of-boundness!

Mords! Mords! i have used the actual word under discussion as well as the full-on n-word both in like the last hour. i am like.... not making this argument. i actually don't think anyone has.

maybe you are confusing me with Tracey Hand? her contributions here have been so offensive that they had to be moderated out iirc

But I guess I'm just a dumb "liberal" for being uncomfortable with physically striking children.

What did you shoplift, Dan? I only ask because I deeply respect your taste in stuff and want to go out and take one for myself on my lunchbreak.

IIRC it was chocolate-flavored gum

look I was 6, okay?

That sounds so fresh though. I mean, they don't even make chocolate-flavored gum now do they? I'm going to go check into that.

trying to remember my last punishment beating and what it was for, probably should be a new thread?

i can't believe i ever used to fight with dan perry on ilx, he's p awesome on this thread

that's nice, honey

everyone goes through cycles, I'm certain in two months jon and I are going to be ganging up on kkvgz over, I don't know, armchairs or something

german toilet poopshelf massacre, ilx nov 2011

disappointed no one lolled at my napkins story :(

shit was hilar

My parents currently claim to have not spanked me all that much, but they spanked the hell out of me when I was young. I don't spank my kid, but my wife does from time to time and I have threatened it and developed a menacing stare/growl in conjunction with it that works wonders.

xps: scrappy doo, if I recall correctly, Dan.

It's fair game to ask why things are the way they are. Generally the answers to those questions are really illuminating! If you ask why the word "faggot" is offensive and someone tells you it's because it originally referred to old woman who carried bundles of sticks around and ppl were trying to draw a parallel between homosexuality and menopausal femininity, you have so much to unpack. It tells you something about how homosexuals were stigmatized, about fundamental social issues, about all kinds of things. If the answer tho is that it's bc ppl are offended by it you've got pretty much nothing but social agreement about what words to use and avoid. But no insight.

Mordy is this your project? you want insight into WHY "retarded" is offensive, the psychogeography of it, if you will?

cause if so i think ppl itt have been doing a bang-up job

but i have to say, if my kid ever asked me why he shouldn't say f*gg*t, i would not refer to old women with bundles of sticks, i would tell him that it's a bad word that hurts people's feelings

Also guys, just because I'm uncomfortable with the thought of striking a kid doesn't mean I'm completely discounting the idea of "corporal punishment". I mean, let's be real here, I'm about a week away from having my first kid so I have LOTS to learn about how to discipline and how to make sure I instill the right values in him, but, at this point, I just can't see myself ever being comfortable with striking him for any reason.

I was beat as a kid too, but not ever as punishment for something I did. It was because my dad was drunk and pissed off. So do you think that might play into my taking offense at someone calling it an "effective method"? I get that it DOES work for some kids and it is what may be needed. But I don't think you can ever consider it a blanket solution for all kids.

I really don't think it makes me a bad person for being uncomfortable with all this. But, y'know, if you really want to dismiss me as a "squishy liberal" or whatever for trying to draw a line in my own life, then, y'know, so be it.

Ppl are doing a pretty terrible job in this thread imho. Mostly tautology that the word is offensive is bc ppl are offended by it -- which, btw, you're reaffirming. Even horseshoe's argument, which I think is the closest to actually answering the question, is a tautology. It's offensive bc it acts like having low intelligence is a bad thing --> however like I mentioned above, divorced from the "retarded" word conversation ppl do believe low intelligence is a bad thing. xp

http://products.makro.co.uk/WebRoot/Store/Shops/Makro/4C3D/2FDC/873C/5DCB/E426/4D44/3D11/661A/227854_L.jpeg

i like how it addresses the intelligence issue also

'the blanket solution' was to bundle the four of us in a blanket and pummel us with stick tbh

No jon, I'm with you that corporal punishment is straight some fucked-up shit. Pretty sure it has been proven to cause more damage than good. Read that somewhere.

haha and the thrashings issue: YOU ASKED FOR IT

jon, you're the one conflating corporeal punishment for bad behavior with getting beaten constantly for no reason and yelling at people for even considering it to be an option, likely because of what happened to you as a child. Those of us who grew up with sensible, understandable corporeal punishment aren't resentful of it because IT WAS NOT ABUSE. NO ONE IS ADVOCATING ABUSE.

i don't think i'd ever hit my kid for two pretty simple reasons: 1) my parents never hit me and 2) it suggests that the exercise of violence by the powerful can be an appropriate way to deal with difficult situations, and that's not a lesson i want to be passing on

my dad tried to spank me once and i just laughed the whole time. disabused him of that notion lickety split

this is a pretty live topic for me because i just found out that the lovely emma b's parents both hit her in the face pretty regularly when she was little o_O

like.... lol france?

Yes, because every person out there has a firm grasp on just what "sensible, understandable corporeal punishment" looks like.

my dad tried to spank me once and i just laughed the whole time. disabused him of that notion lickety split

lol, my college roommate had the exact same experience

xp: clearly you don't

IIRC it was chocolate-flavored gum

look I was 6, okay?

I would have been "huh" if it were chocolate flavored condoms.

Unrelated, but what do ILX parents think of this?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/transgender-10-year-old-j_n_943654.html

Yes, because every person out there has a firm grasp on just what "sensible, understandable corporeal punishment" looks like.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Friday, September 2, 2011 10:40 AM (9 seconds ago)

Your occasional inability to get a grip on your own sarcasm works against you on this board. I don't know if you realize that.

I'm really at a loss here.

(LOL if it comes to raising kids, everyone has an opinion and everyone knows better. Not in favor of hitting kids, but I am not discounting it completely. My cousin made me realize this.)

lol whiney

WGW, as a parent I think that kid's just dressing up all pretty to get out of being thrashed.

I don't plan on thrashing my kid, but I might BMX Action him.

"Son, Eddie Fiola wants a word with you."

Look I get that I'm generally not well liked here. I wasn't trying to accuse lex of condoning abuse, my intention was to register my discomfort with him considering "thrashing" an "effective" tool to teach kids about inapproporiate use of hateful language. I think we can all agree that its a weighty issue with lots of baggage and there is no "one size fits all" answer, so I'm not sure why DJP is continuing to lash out at me about it.

Unrelated, but what do ILX parents think of this?

eh, it's their choice. kid's setting out on a rough road but whatever.

I like you jon fwiw

I'm going to step away from this thread, but I guess I needed to clarify that I wasn't ever trying to accuse anyone of "condoning abuse". At the same time, I don't think it makes me a bad person in the least to be uncomfortable with hitting a child under any circumstances.

"Son, if you keep actin' up..."

http://www.23mag.com/mags/ba/ba8806.jpg

Wouldn't that be scary?

jon, you are liked around here, but do you remember the persecution complex that you develop when you get into arguments with people?

Jon, you are making complete sense to me. And I do like you. (Even if you don't like me. lolol) I really oppose to physical abuse. I witnessed it (neighbours hit their kids and so on) and my dad was abused as well. It is not an effective way at all. No matter how you look at it.

So how as a parent do I feel about hitting kids? RETARDED. lol

BTW Jon, I also tend to assume that people don't like me here. But y'know fuck it, they are RETARDED. ;-)

Fwiw, I don't feel persecuted in the least. I just feel like DJP is hammering away a little too hard for not taking the same view as he does.

Nathalie, you tell it like it is, girl.

the entire episode about trans children, which included the excerpt Whiney posted, was pretty inspiring (and at times harrowing and heartbreaking)

I wasn't addressing whether you're liked or disliked in general on ilx. I was sticking strictly to a perception that overheated rhetoric and a tendency towards sarcastic posts like the one I quoted undercut your arguments. You're not alone.

Well, yeah, that specific post you quoted was some heavy-handed sarcasm, but I genuinely don't think very many people have a grasp on what "good" corporal punishment looks like.

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended at Whiney for posting that thing about trans children in a thread about retarded children. What are you trying to get at, WGW?

http://www.23mag.com/mags/ba/ba8710.jpg

I wanted my life to be like this when I grew up... :' (

What have I done?

not that my opinion is super-important or anything but as a parent I learned my wife and I had very different ingrained ideas about corporal punishment. I was spanked/got the belt occasionally as a kid (primarily between the ages of like 5 and 10, I would say) when I did something really off-the-wall bad and was being uncontrollable. naturally it was scary at the time, but I never really felt I was abused or damaged by it - I'm not a violent person, I don't feel scarred or anything. So my view on how this should be excercised was informed by my own experience (which sounds closer to Dan's and others). My wife, on the other hand, suffered full on abuse from her mom as a child - smacked in the face, beatings, the whole lot. And not just because she was doing anything wrong, just because her mother was crazy and they would fight about stuff. So my wife has a very "we are never raising our hands in violence against our child" mindset. Which, y'know, I'm fine with. It seems perfectly possible to raise a child without corporal punishment. Granted my daughter is only 4 at the moment, an age at which any corporal punishment would basically be abuse imho.

xp

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Actually, now that I think about it, I want to get offended

― esteenban HOOTez (kkvgz), Friday, September 2, 2011 11:59 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Whiney, I'm fucking with you.

:D

what is the real name of the 'faggot chihuahua' btw

Gizmo.

I guess I'm just bummed that someone I like and respect as much as Dan is taking me to task for being conflicted about a thorny issue like this

He did try to rape the cat, who is a guy, but that's not why I call him the f-word.

what's his name?!

Gizmo!

Oh, are you saying I should call him by his actual name?

nah, i just wanted to know,

but fuck that, Gizmo is a name for PEKES not chihuahuas, man!

http://0.tqn.com/d/dogs/1/0/c/r/Princess_peke_fuzz.jpg

I guess I'm just bummed that someone I like and respect as much as Dan is taking me to task for being conflicted about a thorny issue like this

Well yes, because you said you think that someone spanking a child for treating a person like me as sub-human is child abuse. In what universe can you reasonably expect me to go "oh hmm you have a point, that is never worth a spanking"?

You also implied that my parents abused me as a child when they didn't. How on earth is that NOT offensive?

Dude, I sincerely think you are reading too much into my posts.

Being uncomfortable with spanking /= considering all examples of it to be "child abuse".

I'm sure my feedback isn't appreciated here but maybe cut down on the inflammatory responses? Like if you disagree w/ ppl, do it civilly? Fwiw, I don't dislike you! I think I actually enjoy your posts, tho afaik we don't really post on a lot of the same threads?

And you know, now I've gone from confusion to actually being angry with you for daring to imply that I am okay with people using offensive words just because I don't condone corporal punishment.

Like, thats fucking ridiculous.

i'm fairly sure that if i had a kid i would prob. be in jail right now

guilty of possession of l.s.d.-- love for my son and daughter

From what I understand, spanking works in some cases as an effective short-term behavior modification tool. In some cases, it may also present some sort of enduring harm to the child. Other sorts of punishment/behavior modification may have negative repercussions on children too, but they aren't as heavily studied as spanking. I don't think it is the same as child abuse, but I don't use it.

And you know, now I've gone from confusion to actually being angry with you for daring to imply that I am okay with people using offensive words just because I don't condone corporal punishment.

It's also not actually something I did...?

Unless you are a Tracer/Stevie D sockpuppet

(I actually hit the journals when I joined our family because I was so conflicted about whether to spank or not).

What do you guys think about putting hot sauce on a kid's tongue when they act up? It's called "saucing"!

Well yes, because you said you think that someone spanking a child for treating a person like me as sub-human is child abuse.

For the record, I never said any such fucking thing. And if that was how it was read, I sincerely apologize because I'm certainly NEVER okay with anyone treating someone as sub-human. My entire fucking point was that I don't agree with corporal punishment being a good approach.

For bonus points, what if the child in question is retarded?

Oh, that.

Lex brought up spanking (or, as he put it, thrashing) in the context of racial slurs. You said it was going too far. What implication did you expect to be drawn from that?

re: "saucing", I would have called that "delicious"

I never said it was "going too far", I was simply put off by it being the appropriate response to teaching childern about hateful language. Lets get this straight then. If I heard my fourteen year old son use the n-word to describe someone, then, yeah, it might be time for something a little more than just a conversation to set that straight. But if its a six year-old who doesn't fully understand the power of words, thats a different story, . I think there are levels of deterrent here.

^^^

which one of you is actually a parent btw

Well, neither, yet.

lol

I would beat all these imaginary children

I will be in five days.

I had cheyenne pepper put on my tongue when I used inappropriate language as a kid. It burnt then but consequently I know love all spicy food and believe there is a correlation. (I also got spanked/hit as a kid for certain misbehaving - I don't consider myself abused but I do think my parents overused that particular form of punishment. I was the oldest and pretty much they quit doing it when raising the other kids -- I guess they figured out it didn't work.)

My kid went through a phase where he repeatedly said "I don't like black people", but it turned out he was talking about Darth Vader, not Lando Calrissian.

Also, I haven't used any corporal punishment with my daughter (she's 3 months old so...) and don't intend to. I think other disciplinary measures are more effective. I think it can maybe be used judicially tho and there might be circumstances that warrant it (like if a kid runs into the street without looking both ways and they are lightly spanked -- that might make the lesson more memorable). I'm not totally comfortable w/ it either.

It did give us a chance to open up and have some really good convos about diversity and civil rights though.

Darth Vader has rights/feelings too y'know

I will be in five days.

congrats! I had no idea. btw predicted due dates are always wrong ime (unless you're gonna induce or something)

Was on train platform with ADORBS 3yo girl and her mom, last month, and the kid was pointing and waving at babies on the other side, and said, "Those are brown babies!" or something, and her mom was like, "No, dear, they're just babies" kind of embarrassedly and of course all sympathy to parents of small children who'll say anything, anywhere, but her kid was right, I think. It doesn't do to deny that people are different, and there's no interesting conversation to be had there, it just shuts down the discussion.

Rockaway Beach subway track probably not the place to have that convo, though.

Cutest mom and kid, btw. wkiw

Thanks! Our due date is actually the 13th, but we've got a scheduled C-section since he is measuring a little big.

(xpost)

Best wishes j/v/c.

re: laurel's subway story-- kid was ageist and deserves to be smacked imo

have fun jon

Anyway, to backtrack a second, Dan, I really apologize if you misread what I was saying. It most definitely was not "HOW DARE YOU SPANK A CHILD FOR USING RACIAL SLURS?!?!!", it was more of a "guys, really, let's not just assume that corporal punishment is always the best way to teach kids about hateful language".

jon, the one thing I was thinking about this week because my daughter is almost a year old is, I really miss the way she smelled in the first few weeks of her life. I mean, she smells wonderful now too! But there is a "new baby smell" just as sure as there is a "new car smell". Inhale deeply and frequently of your child, jon.

It's true. My mother always smells babies when she picks them up. Idgi but ianam.

Was on train platform with ADORBS 3yo girl and her mom, last month, and the kid was pointing and waving at babies on the other side, and said, "Those are brown babies!" or something, and her mom was like, "No, dear, they're just babies" kind of embarrassedly and of course all sympathy to parents of small children who'll say anything, anywhere, but her kid was right, I think. It doesn't do to deny that people are different, and there's no interesting conversation to be had there, it just shuts down the discussion.

there is another thread specifically about dealing with race with little kids and some of the rather surprising results of recent studies (I think you were on it iirc Laurel) but yeah this is an awkward thing to deal with. It depends largely on how other adults (ie, not necessarily the parent) react as well - cuz yeah, 3 yo say anything that pops into their heads. and they will note things about other people - how big they are, what color their skin is, what color their eyes are, what color their hair is, etc. They are figuring out the world and how to talk about it. And what they say reflects how the parent has introduced these subjects to the children, how they're discussed on a day-to-day basis. My wife gets very tense about this stuff, like she doesn't want any non-white kids or parents to get offended if our daughter makes some matter-of-fact comment about skin color. ime people who are comfortable with children understand what is going on and are happy to deal with it and discuss it. people who maybe aren't comfortable with children may act awkward or offended or just ignore it. with kids themselves it varies - my favorite recent exchange was between my daughter and a black boy she met at the playground:

daughter: you have brown skin!
boy: you have light skin!
daughter: I'm David Bowie!
boy: I'm the Hulk!

yes

bb's smell like corinthian leather iirc

xp ^^^^^ Yes!!!!! Oh my goodness.

daughter: you have brown skin!
boy: you have light skin!
daughter: I'm David Bowie!
boy: I'm the Hulk!

this is the cutest thing I've ever read

Jon: Thanks.

i was like 7 and I asked my dad at the dinner table "Is fuck a bad word?" and he instinctually smacked me across the face.

Now it's like my favorite word, so

shakey if you are inculcating your kid with station to station i feel like maybe i should call cps

Yeah better to let kids notice ways in which people are different and then talk about the differences for what they are -- in this case, p superficial! -- and leave the door open for understanding lots of kinds of diversity.

I think I was on that thread too, about how kids' brains are in classification mode at that stage and when you deny them the outlet for recognizing differences, you are counteracting their hardwired development.

my son has told me on several occasions that he is a black baby woman

shakey if you are inculcating your kid with station to station i feel like maybe i should call cps

she's gone through phases - for awhile it was all King Khan, then the White Stripes, now she's all into Bowie. "Fashion", "Young Americans", "Oh You Pretty Things". Today she asked "why did david bowie draw something awful on it"

what the hell happened on this thread

she's gone through phases - for awhile it was all King Khan, then the White Stripes, now she's all into Bowie. "Fashion", "Young Americans", "Oh You Pretty Things". Today she asked "why did david bowie draw something awful on it"

aw

what the hell happened on this thread

aw

like i liked this a lot better before i went to bed last night where it was me/mordy/horseshoe/a few others having a heated but intelligent and also civil argument

cmon man everyone loves how babies smell

Ppl are doing a pretty terrible job in this thread imho. Mostly tautology that the word is offensive is bc ppl are offended by it -- which, btw, you're reaffirming. Even horseshoe's argument, which I think is the closest to actually answering the question, is a tautology. It's offensive bc it acts like having low intelligence is a bad thing --> however like I mentioned above, divorced from the "retarded" word conversation ppl do believe low intelligence is a bad thing. xp

― Mordy, Friday, September 2, 2011 11:34 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

well Mordy I think a lot of the power of the insult, and of insults in general, is to make fun of a person for something they can't fundamentally change. and that reaches into the American belief, maybe myth, that if you try hard enough you can change almost anything about yourself, even your intelligence, through hard work and perseverance. however, that doesn't hold true for certain, immanent qualities like race, gender, sexual preference, medical conditions, and hence insults about those qualities seem to occupy the top of the pyramid.

mordy i actually appreciate your thoughfulness on this topic even though i think it's purely academic and not really useful in the world we live in

ive been trying to use the word "dumb" less too

how do you describe stuff you consider dumb

"stupid"!

or, "mute"

"below the median"

Also, sincere apologizes to DJP et al for use of the n-word; my point was to say "look, all of these words exist and they're all pretty much on the same plane and we really shouldn't use any of them ever as a tool for insult or scorn." Also there was no, like, "oh man I am so excited I get to use the n-word today!!!" at all

that reaches into the American belief, maybe myth, that if you try hard enough you can change almost anything about yourself, even your intelligence, through hard work and perseverance

this is completely off topic but it's related to this - i often see a...certain type of woman get castigated for, eg, being a stripper and using her body to earn money instead of her brain. and on a celebrity level, your kim kardashians and katie prices making money out of how they look instead of, idk, being a lawyer or being CEO of some financial institution [and making money from using their brain to fuck over less smart people]. these criticisms are sometimes placed in a feminist context.

but it's like...maybe these women aren't academically inclined? i don't see any shame in that. it just seems baffling, this idea that if you just work hard and study hard then intelligence will come to you.

Also there was no, like, "oh man I am so excited I get to use the n-word today!!!" at all

seems like more of a frobgs thing

guys don't fear, I have a usage note from the apple dictionary!

THE RIGHT WORD
If you want to impugn someone's intelligence, the options are almost limitless.
You can call the person stupid, a term that implies a sluggish, slow-witted lack of intelligence.
Asinine is a harsher word, implying asslike or foolish behavior rather than slow-wittedness (: a woman her age looked asinine in a miniskirt).
Calling someone dumb is risky, because it is not only an informal word (: you dumb bunny!), but because it also means mute and is associated with the offensive expression “deaf and dumb,” used to describe people who cannot hear or speak.
Dense implies an inability to understand even simple facts or instructions (: too dense to get the joke), while dull suggests a sluggishness of mind unrelieved by any hint of quickness, brightness, or liveliness (: a dull stare).
Slow also implies a lack of quickness in comprehension or reaction and is often used as a euphemistic substitute for stupid (: he was a little slow intellectually).
Obtuse is a more formal word for slow-wittedness, but with a strong undercurrent of scorn (: it almost seemed as though he were being deliberately obtuse).
You can't go wrong with a word like unintelligent, which is probably the most objective term for low mental ability and the least likely to provoke an angry response (: unintelligent answers to the teacher's questions).

it just seems baffling, this idea that if you just work hard and study hard then intelligence will come to you.

this is... kind of true though?

like, critical thinking skills CAN be taught

Right! I mean, no matter what base level you start from, you can always learn something new.

it strikes me as extremely paternalistic and sexist to essentially say to women like Kim Kardashian, "it's okay to be stupid, just be a whore and you'll be fine!"

no it's not! idk, i remember at school - and i went to a pretty good school, i was in the top sets, smart stuff came naturally to me, but it's not like the kids in the lowest sets or who got low grades did so because they weren't trying. they just weren't good at maths or french or whatever it was. they were never gonna excel academically. that's totally ok, and they had other gifts, stuff that did come naturally to them, but i don't see any point in pretending that academic success is a route that's open to everyone.

I think there are some people on ilx who might be willing to take the opposite position (at least from what I can see from the posts about the merits of academic education over on the quiddities/generation limbo thread)

xp

opposite position about intelligence as a teachable thing, that is

I get that lex, but there is a difference between "academic success" and just generally raising your level of intelligence.

yeah there's a lot of slivers of things that came out that make me think GWB had a genuine learning disability but the most galling thing about him was that he only compensated by investing in the kinds of intelligence that would get him elected, rather than the kinds of intelligence that would contribute to sage governance. so i feel GWB is like a stripper/kardashian in that respect.

xp

Poor characteization there, shakey. I have a hunch KK figured out where her strength was and played to her strength, completely independently of someone mentoring her toward that idea. Also, what she does is not technically whoring.

Also, what she does is not technically whoring.

lol really. and what is she most famous for exactly

but there is a difference between "academic success" and just generally raising your level of intelligence

^^^this

I mean if we're discussing academia exclusively - which is generally a fucked up institution not indicative of actual intelligence in any real way - then sure yeah, not everybody is going to succeed. it isn't statistically possible.

i'm always kind of aware that being relatively book-smart is something innate in me; i take for granted that i can string a sentence together but lots of people i consider intelligent find this tough. and it's not the only kind of smart - eg i certainly don't have the business/money-making smarts of, well, kim kardashian.

wouldn't wanna sit this one out entirely so let me point out with interest that in this discussion of language that is hurtful to others and when it is or isn't ok to use it, "bitch" only makes an appearance...in somebody's screenname

Was on train platform with ADORBS 3yo girl and her mom, last month, and the kid was pointing and waving at babies on the other side, and said, "Those are brown babies!" or something, and her mom was like, "No, dear, they're just babies" kind of embarrassedly and of course all sympathy to parents of small children who'll say anything, anywhere, but her kid was right, I think. It doesn't do to deny that people are different, and there's no interesting conversation to be had there, it just shuts down the discussion.

About an hour ago I was actually having a chat with my kids about school and the new kids in their class. There's a black girl in Elisabeth's class. I just asked "Who's the girl?" and then I added, after she exclaimed she didn't know who I was talking about, "the black girl." And then they went on about different skin colours. I want my kids to be able to talk about skin colour. Not avoid it because it's wrong (it isn't).

and as the economics thread proves (and indeed various discussions about cooking that periodically come up), there are some things i'm stupid at, and no amount of hard work is going to change that. i don't think you can fundamentally change these things.

i mean the question of kim kardash's success and what it says about women's options isn't about a non-academic girl making money out of her strengths - it's about how society as a whole rewards kim k disproportionately for those strengths. but that's a separate argument and she's not that good an argument for it (as she's an outlier) - focus on why corporate CEOs earn more than nurses instead ffs.

she's gone through phases - for awhile it was all King Khan, then the White Stripes, now she's all into Bowie. "Fashion", "Young Americans", "Oh You Pretty Things". Today she asked "why did david bowie draw something awful on it"

Don't look at the carpet -- she just drew something awful on it. See.

good for you stevie. little kids need to talk about this stuff. it's okay for them to discuss skin color. but the other lesson - that goes kind of hand in hand - is that it's rude/not really acceptable to just yell things about people at them (ie, "you're fat!" "you're skinny!", "you're black!", whatever). It's not that there's anything wrong with these particular characteristics or that they shouldn't be talked about, it's HOW you talk about them that's important.

i have a grudging respect for these amoral hustlers but c'mon, even useless book-smarts is more socially redeeming than what these guys do, and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to curb these kardashians towards an MFA or something.

Oh yes, definitely. I had my oldest describe a person as "heavy person." Although said person was indeed obese, I reprimanded her for doing so because it could make the person uncomfortable.

I strongly want my children to be at ease with different skin colours though.

It is such a difficult thing. :-(

Kardashians are RETARDED. (I rrrrreally hate these people.)

holy crap this thread

focus on why corporate CEOs earn more than nurses instead ffs.

a different argument, one basically about how the ruling oligarchy weights the game in their favor, but I'm missing what this has to do with women...

xp

i haven't read it all yet, but i just want to say that i deliberately didn't compare "retard" to the n-word because i do think the history of the n-word is uniquely horrible and there's no legitimate usage of it by non-black people basically.

except for singing along to rap songs when theres only other white people around

it does seem to me that Mordy hasn't experienced the way "retarded" in its offensive usage came about. it sort of makes me feel like he's from another planet, but i can see how he wouldn't have the same reaction to it that others in this thread do. i do think there's a weird sophistry to his semantic arguments about it, but he seems sincere.

You know different ppl have different experiences w/ words! Also, I assume everyone knows this but I'm kinda from a different planet wrt my upbringing and background. I come from a Chassidic Jewish family and attended parochial schools throughout my educational career until actually grad school. It's just not a phrase that was used a lot in my middle school. Different communities use words differently.

i thought kinder's point way upthread was worth responding to but i guess i'll catch up on the thread first

except for singing along to rap songs when theres only other white people around

― max, Friday, September 2, 2011 12:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

singing a rap the 2nd worst part of this

Also, I assume everyone knows this but I'm kinda from a different planet wrt my upbringing and background. I come from a Chassidic Jewish family and attended parochial schools throughout my educational career until actually grad school. It's just not a phrase that was used a lot in my middle school.

i did vaguely know this, but tbh i assumed all communities of asshole kids used the word in this way. i am happy to be wrong!

without clothes all horses run

I'm pretty tone-deaf when it comes to this kind of thing but if I'm unsure about a word then of course I won't use it but do find it interesting to talk about why or why not. I was gonna get into this from wikipedia:

"Connotations easily change over time. "Idiot", "imbecile", and "moron" were once neutral terms for a developmentally delayed adult with the mental age comparable to a toddler, preschooler, and primary school child, respectively.[13] As with Gresham's law, negative connotations tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the phrase mentally retarded was pressed into service to replace them.[14] Mentally retarded, too, has come to be considered inappropriate by some, because the word "retarded" came to be commonly used as an insult of a person, thing, or idea. As a result, new terms like "mentally challenged", "with an intellectual disability", "learning difficulties" and "special needs" have replaced "retarded"."

But I saw it was already discussed in the original thread and basically seems irrelevant now we've established the r-word is offensive because it does have connotation other than just its literal meaning. (Also I have to go out now)

^^ that quote more because I didn't realise that 'idiot' etc basically meant the same thing, not because of the "Euphemism treadmill" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism_treadmill#Euphemism_treadmill

the less incendiary but probably more offensive "doyyy" was what we learned. i've started using "senior moment" as a more socially acceptable substitute.
like:
"where's the print button!"
"it's this big button that says print on it"
"oh no doy I had a senior moment"

old geezers seem cool with it.

you associate 'doy' w/ something offensive?

never occurred to me -- just saw it as like, the brain stopping

there's a spastic, chest-thumping, eye-rolling gesture that normally accompanies "doy" in kids that withers away with age and polite company, but is always implicit.

I'm fine w/ people saying "retarded" on ILX, just as long as its not a place where ppl call things "ghetto"

I'm fine w/ people saying "retarded" on ILX, just as long as its not a place where ppl call things "ghetto"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/ArcoDelleAzimelleInGhettoByRoeslerFranz.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcECgEY6MH4

oh look mordy taking the wrong side of ridiculous semantical debate, thats new

oh whiney taking blah blah blah who cares

otm

lol

i do think there's a weird sophistry to his semantic arguments about it,

i really think that's all it is, esp since he admits to having enough sense to avoid saying the word in his day to day life - that really gave the game away

"gave the game away" idgi, like god forbid someone should have a conversation where they probe an issue w/out immediately jumping to the most obvious endgame solution but i guess if you hate talking about / thinking about stuff like this then yeah you'd think it was weird sophistry.

words, right

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Entertainment/images-4/michael-richards-racist-rant.jpg

words, man... words are crazy...

thats whats so crazy about this

said some pretty nasty things about some afro-americans

just dont moch freckles

My friend who has a sister with Down syndrome pulled me aside and asked me to stop saying "retard" in a pejorative sense, and since then I've really tried to not say it. It's hard though, because like so many slurs it is just inherently fun to say, for some reason. I don't know if it's a sound thing, or the shock factor, or... But for me, thinking about my friend and her cool sister is reason enough to stop.

NOT gonna wade into this debate, but I do feel good about having pretty much removed this word from my vocab. I used to say it way too much and kinda realized how stupid and embarrassing it was.

Now gotta work on the f-word

as someone who has been a dick to mordy in the past about this stuff and has regretted it i understand what horseshoe is saying - mordy's a smart dude and just constitutionally likes to play devils advocate, with himself, with whomever, and it can be very frustrating!, because half the time it seems like he doesn't even believe what's coming out of his own mouth but is just exploring different ways of arguing about shit. and if you don't come to play knowing this then yeah, it does come off as sophistry!

didn't you mean deej

polyphonic - its just a mad fun word to say. it has good mouthfeel.

no, mordy xp

if that sounded condescending at all btw it wasn't meant to be

k3v, I think that's pretty otm.

thx for saying it. i feel very validated. lol. and i do try to apologize when i get out of hand.

i can speak from experience that ppl get frustrated with nothing more than someone who loves playing devil advocate

hah k3v otm

lol xposts

I don't think devil's advocate is quite the right word. I don't take the other side of an argument just to be contrary. I take it bc I'm curious about what stuff is left unsaid, or hasn't been thought through, or bc I want to try on the position and see what it produces. I think it's more socratic than sophistry -- not that I'd like put on those airs but I don't want to sound like I'm acting contrary because I like to fight. I actually really hate that sometimes these conversations devolve into ppl yelling at each other and its why I basically stopped posting on politics threads. I do it bc I'm authentically curious about what other ways there are about thinking about things.

and also cause it's kinda boring when a thread is just a bunch of ppl agreeing about the same pt. i'm much more concerned about being interested/interesting than being right on ilx.

haha okay. i like your distinction between what you do and "playing devil's advocate" which always reads like bs plausible deniability to me.

i... appreciate mordy saying what he's saying in this thread, because i'm working through my own issues with this word, but it's hard to ask questions without getting yelled at. i think i disagree with what he's saying though.

how much can the person who is the target of the word discuss whether or not the word is offensive to them in this case? i guess first of all, who is the target? and what is the spectrum of mental/verbal capacity we're talking about here? isn't there a point at which someone is completely outside of language and the ability to understand/articulate it? is that who the word "retard" refers to? can they talk about why it offends them? can they feel it? is there a difference? if we can "verify" it somehow, then doesn't it make the word potentially offensive to anyone with down syndrone? i have hardly any experience with/knowledge of mentally disabled people so please tell me if i have all of this wrong. i guess this tack is all ethics based on the centrality of language and symbolic logic and you can go wrong in two places: 1) getting your "measurements" of language and symbolic logic wrong and 2) basing everything on language and symbolic logic in the first place.

first of all, let me say that i don't really believe in 2) and i think that if you, as a being, are biologically or even not biologically alive than i think your existence deserves just as much respect as that of Smarty van Einstein. BUT i start to wonder if speech on the level of using the word "retard" is really disrespecting or hurting or denying the magical otherness or whatever of someone with a mental "syndrome" or a group of people with these "syndrome"s THAT MUCH MORE than what is already built-in to words like "syndrome" in the first place! I think the problem is, when we think about these people and these diseases or handicaps or "special spirits" or whatever euphemism comes along to replace the previous one, we have to continually confront the fact that we think about these other beings in these terms, that we think about other human beings in these terms in general, that we have this ugly side to progress-oriented western humanism that puts other human beings along this spectrum of valuability.

i think it's important to look at the root of the problem and try to change that, which is hard because it's society-wide and sort of built in to how we think about society in the first place. in the meantime, i think the reason why it's so tempting/satisfying to use the word "retard" is because it's essentially calling out the hypocrisy of people who don't want something ugly thrown at their face but are fine with thinking that smart people are better than dumb people. also, it pisses off people who presume to know what offends someone else (this bothers me more than any slur you can think of), and that is always worthwhile.

so maybe i actually do agree with mordy in a way! along the lines of: there doesn't seem to be a difference between the word "retard" and the general default concept as applied to people who don't operate in the same thought/language arena that you and i do, for hundreds of years, in the_west. i think that mode of thinking about others is the problem, and changing words around doesn't necessarily fix it. in the mean time, it's kind of fun to use the word "retard" to play with/point out this hypocrisy. BUT i personally don't want to be mistaken for someone who advocates cruelty to others based on brains/brawn/skin color or whatever so i'm trying to eliminate it from my vocabulary. i mean ultimately, i think there are better/more constructive things to think/say.

i guess my thing about that is regardless of whether a retarded person would be offended (and afaik there's a spectrum of developmental disability and some people definitely do have the capacity to be hurt/offended), the context that the usage of retarded we've been talking about sprang up in was deliberately cruel to the developmentally disabled for being different than "normals." also what dayo said about mocking people for who they are. i can't really argue with your observation that the whole system of classification/language surrounding the developmentally disabled is worth questioning, but i still think it's uncontroversial that "retarded" is worth retiring. also can't disagree with the importance of looking at the root of the problem and working to change it, of course. don't think refraining from using "retarded" is opposed to that goal, think it is of a piece with it.

i think the reason why it's so tempting/satisfying to use the word "retard" is because it's essentially calling out the hypocrisy of people who don't want something ugly thrown at their face but are fine with thinking that smart people are better than dumb people. also, it pisses off people who presume to know what offends someone else (this bothers me more than any slur you can think of), and that is always worthwhile.

this may be what satisfies you about using the word "retard" but i don't think it's what has satisfied me in my usage of it and i'm skeptical that this is what's going on when most people use it. i think i am probably classifiable as a person who presumes to know what offends someone else, but i would phrase it more as a person who thinks that some words have discriminatory power dynamics embedded in them.

xp

How much longer can I use "normals" pejoratively?

that depends, are you white

that depends, are you a wicked retard

ok, i haven't read through the whole thread and i didn't see dayo's post above and it's very otm. i can also see how much hurtful baggage the word has for different people and if i really think about it, for myself too. like, it's not just about disabled people, it's about cruelty and power vs. helplessness in lots of contexts. xp