this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
83 points (97.7% liked)
Asklemmy
53746 readers
506 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Retard.
I really try not to say this out loud. Im mostly successful. Its deeply imprinted.
Iโve been hearing this a lot more within the last ~14 months.
I hate how that word became pejorative, because it was used correctly. By the way, it's still used in plumbing. Retard is a verb which means to slow, e.g. retard the flow. When you call a person who is developmentally disabled that, yes it's rude, but it means their mental process is slow. The word was being used accurately. It's just not nice to say.
I don't think "window licker" was ever accurate, but for some reason it's slightly more socially acceptable to say (or imply, e.g. "I will say this for him, his windows are always clean").
There's a few term of that kind of age which were like that. Medical terms or just plain English words that became labelled "derogatory" because of how they were used. I always felt it showed how poor the vocabulary of some people was. If they only knew the derogatory meaning they'd get offended by it's use in all situations even if the meaning was innocent.
It doesn't mean their mental process is slow. It refers to developmental retardation. As if the person's body is just going to "catch up" one day... Which is why it was a stupid thing to say all along.
"Everyone's always asking me: 'What are you doing, retard?', but nobody ever asks 'How are you doing, retard?'"
How are you doing retard?
โค๏ธ
That was very common when I was growing up. Unfortunately, it has been replaced with variations of autistic, though "anti-woke" people will use both.
pivotal comma
Maybe by youโฆ Unfortunately.
Eh, I use it for very stupid people. Obviously devoid of ableist intent.
I feel as though the context matters with this. For the genuinely evil and criminally unintelligent I would use the clinical "Mentally retarded".
"Retard" and music (low volume) on buses are the controversial hills I'm willing to die on.
Pick better hills.
Maybe later, for now I have petty culturally unpopular positions that I will maintain. They are few but they are mine.