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Can you actually legislate against a word? Who's going to enforce that law? And if you stand up in public and call someone "mentally retarded," what's going to happen to you? Arrest, a trial by jury and two years in jail for speaking a couple of words?
Someone had a bad batch of coffee the day that "law" was proposed.
I know it isn't PC to say "retarded" anymore, but I don't really get why. My son had "intrauterine growth retardation." His growth was "retarded" stopped, stunted. I don't see why the term "mental retardation" has become a no no.
My aunt was mentally retarded. She also had cerebral palsy. She died in the early 90's at the age of 61, before she got to be "developmentally disabled" and "physically challenged".
A law like that is retarded. It's just language. The word "idiot" once meant the same thing, but no one uses it in its proper form anymore and no one is making a law about that.
In 1856, Dr. Langdon Down, Medical Superintendent of the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Redhill, Surrey, England wrote his paper on "an ethnic classification of idiots" because he'd noticed that certain of the idiots in his asylum had similar physical characteristics so pronounced they all appeared to be related to one another. From then on those idiots were specifically called "Mongolian Idiots" until the early 1960's when the syndrome was renamed for him.
No one calls Down's Syndrome kids idiots anymore, but we still use the word to denote willful stupidity and no one says, "hey don't say that, my sister is an idiot." "Retarded" is going the same way.
My aunt was mentally retarded. She also had cerebral palsy. She died in the early 90's at the age of 61, before she got to be "developmentally disabled" and "physically challenged".
A law like that is retarded. It's just language. The word "idiot" once meant the same thing, but no one uses it in its proper form anymore and no one is making a law about that.
In 1856, Dr. Langdon Down, Medical Superintendent of the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots in Redhill, Surrey, England wrote his paper on "an ethnic classification of idiots" because he'd noticed that certain of the idiots in his asylum had similar physical characteristics so pronounced they all appeared to be related to one another. From then on those idiots were specifically called "Mongolian Idiots" until the early 1960's when the syndrome was renamed for him.
No one calls Down's Syndrome kids idiots anymore, but we still use the word to denote willful stupidity and no one says, "hey don't say that, my sister is an idiot." "Retarded" is going the same way.
good post. actually i am an idiot and tried to make the same point but a mod deleted it as being off topic. go figure
exactly retarded to me means simply different .in the 60's we used to retard the timing on our muscle cars to get a few more horses out of em. it was a very innocent term.and still is. why should we rewrite our entire language cause some person goes to to many malls and sporting events
Back in the 60s, my firend with the retarded sister really chewed someone out for saying something was "retarded". She said it was disrespectful to her sister. This was well before the days of "PC" language. It is disrespectful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dcsldcd
What is interesting is many of the words the left winger whiners are trying to get rid of is the very words they use themselves. Just do a google search on some of those words and see who or what has the web site. Try the word love.doll posted.
Oh, give me a break. I haven't used the word "retarded" in decades. It was disrespectful then and it's disrespectful now.
Sometimes I wish we could still give negative rep.
now that would be retarded
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