Comment on Well would you look at that...
BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 day agoIt no longer means the same though. Language changes, and the R word is used as an insult equating somebody to somebody with down syndrome (as an example) while Moron and Idiot don’t have a direct correlation to a group.
While all are still uses medically, there is context needed. Like the test might say your child is in the idiot, moron range. But a doctor will now say they have mental retardation or reduced mental capacity. They dont say hey parents your kid is ‘Re----"
People still using the R word (as non time related uses) are just behind the times, like when my mom called black people colored…at some point somebody has to confront you and say “hey, this is not how we do things now”
ViceroTempus@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Moron and Idiot were the original correlations. People adopted those words as insults and the medical community adopted new words, and then those words got used as insults, and then the medical community adopted new words…
And on and on and on. Moron equates you to someone with diminished capacity like someone with down syndrome, to use your example. So does Idiot, and Imbecile. As again they were medical terms turned into insults lol.
So like by all means hate Retarded as word, but have some consistency.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
The terms moron and idiot are still used on the test reports, but nobody nowawdays associates calling somebody an idiot/moron with a slur against the mentally challenged, but the R word is.
Like under your argument we can still call people gay as a slur because it used to mean happy.
We stopped calling people gay or R word in the early 90s dude.
NonconfrontationaI@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
Wtf? Were you not around then? No we absolutely didn’t.
It wasn’t until the early oughts that it started to fall out of fashion and it wasn’t until the teens that it was considered slur territory.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 11 hours ago
We did where I lived. Was around the George Michael and other stars coming out, and people waking up about slurs, N word also was dropping out.
ViceroTempus@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Lmao, sorry, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to get told, wrongly, about history I lived through. Retard didn’t fall out of favor until the 2010’s, and gay as an insult only started wearing off towards the late 00’s early 10’s which is why you can still see it in media from the time.
Not sure how old you are, but I found it very funny.
NonconfrontationaI@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
Wow I didn’t see that you wrote an almost identical comment first, lol.
BCsven@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
Highschool mid 80s. Maybe I just lived in a more progressive zone, where language changed faster, or people realised it was not couth