it has never been socially acceptable for anyone alive today.
The whole fucking point of an insult is to be insulting.
What has actually happened with this word isn’t that it has somehow become less acceptable but that attacking people for using the wrong language has become acceptable, and I think that is retarded.
That’s not true, “retarded” (from the latin term for delay) was intially used as a medical term to someone with lower cognitive abilities, not an insult per se. but like other similar terms (such as “cretin”) it was eventually used more as an insult, until it was considered offensive by most and only the offensive meaning remained in the common speech.
it has never been socially acceptable for anyone alive today.
The whole fucking point of an insult is to be insulting.
What has actually happened with this word isn’t that it has somehow become less acceptable but that attacking people for using the wrong language has become acceptable, and I think that is retarded.
That’s not true, “retarded” (from the latin term for delay) was intially used as a medical term to someone with lower cognitive abilities, not an insult per se. but like other similar terms (such as “cretin”) it was eventually used more as an insult, until it was considered offensive by most and only the offensive meaning remained in the common speech.