Blahaj.zone admin here. Let me make this simple and clear. I don’t care what specific word you use, if you are using intellectual disability or neurodivergence as an insult, you’re going to get moderated.
I think it’s fine in its original contexts (i.e. “retardant”, or to “retard” something), but could maybe be avoided in 80% of cases.
It is inexcusable to apply it to people though.
I know so many people who adamantly stand by their use of it. I used to say it, too, but all it took was one person to point out to me that it was hurtful and I apologised and stopped no questions asked. I don’t get why it’s so hard to just have a little empathy.
Fun fact: Abbott sells methylphenidate chlorohydrate with a retardant effect so that it lasts for approximately 16 hours instead of 4, and they called it Aradix Retard lmao. I know why they called it that but I can’t help but laugh every time I see it.
Yes words can mean different things.
Airbus pilots hear the removed call-out all the time.
Aradix Retard
Sounds like a Harry Potter spell
Fans: Because it slows things down? Rowling:
Tell that to anyone in the aviation industry and you’ll get a chuckle and a couple of "bless your heart"s.
entirely different word and we both know it
Try telling that to a text filter or a moderator on a power trip. They won’t give a rat’s ass about “to retard” meaning “to reduce or hold back.” Even the linked article fails to make the semantic distinction when it calls for the elimination of the word.
If this comment disappears, it will have proven my point.
it’s giving 6th grade locker room 😂😂😂
“dude look i found a way to say it and dude it’s allowed because it’s about airplanes”
I asked a question about this after seeing it quite a bit here!
This is the argument I see to defend use of the word and I’ve never understood it. Where I am (west coast-ish of the US), the word is used very specifically to mean autistic. If you ask someone not to say retard, they say autistic instead. If you ask them not to say autistic, they say special education. If not that, slow. If not that, someone who takes the short bus. Unambiguously the people here use the r slur as a slur against autistic people. They use it as an insult towards allistic people to degrade them as lesser. Same as calling a straight person the f slur. Maybe it’s different in other parts of the country, but the r slur is absolutely used as a slur against autistic people where I am.
I’m sorry this happens where you live, that’s super messed up. Autism is particularly frustrating to see denigrated because it all too often comes down to social ineptitude (so far as the people who ostracize others go). Everyone’s brains work differently - this idea that anyone who breaks the mold should be cut down is incredibly frustrating and sad.
the constant reality is that hateful losers just want to be verbally disdainful and othering to the disabled, and they will do whatever they can to keep doing it even if it means changing their language
the model of the “euphemism treadmill,” while accurate, is just another tool spiteful people use to justify saying spiteful derogatives
I guess I’m getting too old. Is everyone these days offended by crumbs? And don’t come in with your vocabulary evolves, works both ways. Were I live everyone uses a multitude of slurs and nobody is hurt in the process, but if they do. Then they open their mouth and we have a civilized discussion about it. We’re nearing a point of a privacy invaded society by the people and not the governments at this rate, everyone is opinionated about everything and hurt in the feelings if someone doesn’t adhere to their vision on reality.
this post is literally the definition of me opening my mouth and having a civilized discussion about it. pls respect that. :)
Ootl. Did someone use the word that rhymes with lard?
You can say fart on here
hello rhyme police? yeah this one right here
How am I supposed to just stop using this word?? How else is the plane supposed to tell me to put thrust at idle during landing? This is ridiculous.
no hate to you but i do hate that this is one of the default responses the internet has chosen when discussing this language (twice now in this thread)
i guess it’s like a growing pains thing, but it strikes me as very middle schooler, kind of like bringing up that one word that means unwilling to share with others.
one is a noun/adjective, the other is a verb. entirely different words that simply have the same Latin root. one is used in a professional context in an industry nearly none of us are familiar with, the other i come across as a derogatory on this site pretty much hourly. please let’s grow up a bit about this.
(again no hate to you specifically commenter, it was a funny joke and i just want to call out the broader trend)
It’s just lazy. If you want to hurt someone’s feelings you need to do the work.
i miss old school r/murderedbywords
If I call you “stupid,” “moronic,” or “intellectually bankrupt” you know what I’m saying. Getting offended by the specific wording of an ad hominem, while giving synonymous terms a pass, is truly some of the finest hair-splitting I have ever had the displeasure of seeing.
Imagine calling the difference between people who do stupid things and people who are born with diagnosed mental illnesses “splitting hairs”.
It’s very, very simple. In one case, you are attacking someone who is completely in control of their mental facilities. In the other, you are attacking people who are literally incapable of defending themselves, from birth. They are not synonymous. If you think that level of punching down is okay, then be as indignant and self-righteous about it as you want, but you deserve to be told.
Intellectually-disabled people were originally defined with words such as “morons” or “imbeciles”, which then became commonly used insults.
I don’t see anyone getting a ban anywhere for calling someone a “moron,” for any other reason than making an ad hominem. The thought is almost laughable.
So, we’re just going to pretend that language doesn’t evolve because it justifies your bias?
People didn’t put their foot down when the meaning of those words began to shift, and now they mean something entirely different. In our more socially and culturally aware culture, we as a people understand nuance and are generally educated enough to see what’s happening. We have by and large decided that it’s a bad thing to continue normalizing attacking the mentally disabled.
Fuck off with your pseudo-intellectual defense of toxic, dehumanizing culture. Words mean things. The things they mean can change. Those ones, in a less educated and accepting time, did. The ones we have now have not. Your attempt to dismiss that is genuinely hateful.
