Retard or
retarded are abbreviations of old
medical terms that were developed to replace even older medical terms such as
idiot,
imbecile, and
moron.
Political-correctness is trying to eliminate these words via the euphemism treadmill, but it is not incorrect to use these terms to describe the intellectually disabled.
People still call bariatric people
fat and/or
obese without stigma. So if "fat" people are not the "o-word", why must we wholly abstain from any use of "retarded" for those who are so-afflicted?
I'm not suggesting that we be assholes about it with those so-affected, but I'm also suggesting that self-righteous PC pricks calm the fuck down if it is used.
"
Retarded comes from the Latin
retardare, "to make slow, delay, keep back, or hinder," so
mental retardation meant the same as
mentally delayed. The term was recorded in 1426 as a "fact or action of making slower in movement or time." The first record of retarded in relation to being mentally slow was in 1895. The term
retarded was used to replace terms like
idiot,
moron, and
imbecile because
retarded was not then a derogatory term. By the 1960s, however, the term had taken on a partially derogatory meaning as well. The noun
retard is particularly seen as pejorative; as of 2010, the Special Olympics, Best Buddies and over 100 other organizations are striving to eliminate the use of the "r-word" (analogous to the "n-word") in everyday conversation.
The term
mental retardation was a diagnostic term denoting the group of disconnected categories of mental functioning such as
idiot,
imbecile, and
moron derived from early IQ tests, which acquired pejorative connotations in popular discourse. The term
mental retardation acquired negative and shameful connotations over the last few decades due to the use of the words
retarded and
retard as insults. This may have contributed to its replacement with euphemisms such as
mentally challenged or
intellectually disabled. While
developmental disability includes many other disorders,
developmental disability and
developmental delay (for people under the age of 18), are generally considered more polite terms than
mental retardation."
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