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What would be the most offensive word in the English language now?

NIMAN

From the last few years, I'd say it has to be the 'N' word.
(Afraid to type it in case it isn't censored properly on Boards and the Gardai come to arrest me).

It would likely have been the cnut word for many folk, but since I heard it a handful of times in the Oscar nominated 'The Favourite', it seems to be going mainstream.

I watched a news piece the other day about police racism in England since the Stephen Lawrence murder, and a black man actually said something like "back then walking down the street I would have been called the n word".

So its now so offensive that even black people aren't allowed to say the word when explaining a situation. Was this black man afraid that the internet would turn on him for using it??

Will we ever hear the full word uttered again, or is simply going to become "the n word".

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Keyzer

Cuntydogsbollox

Pissbag

And my personal pet hate - omellette...

jimgoose

Sorry about that wrote: »

Of course Joe. That's a benign use of the word, unrelated to the dated and now insulting version of the word which was used from the1960's to describe a person with a learning disability.

Good luck with your car repairs.

I had an oul' Jag with retarded ignition once, nothing worse.

Wibbs

jimgoose wrote: »

I had an oul' Jag with retarded ignition once, nothing worse.

Mind you ignition too advanced is more likely to blow your engine up.

Sorry about that

jimgoose wrote: »

I had an oul' Jag with retarded ignition once, nothing worse.

That's great. Good point.

Sorry about that

Wibbs wrote: »

Mind you ignition too advanced is more likely to blow your engine up.

Guffaw!

Sorry about that

It is amazing to see some of the boards regulars get together to generate such positivity and compassion to others. To respectfully disagree, to accept that other people may have differing views to them.
There seems to be safety in numbers. Welcome back Mr Wibbs.

Keyzer

sligojoek wrote: »

If the electricity goes off these days it's an "Outage". Whatever happened to "Blackout"?

We still have brownout's if that makes you feel any better.

jimgoose

Sorry about that wrote: »

It is amazing to see some of the boards regulars get together to generate such positivity and compassion to others. To respectfully disagree, to accept that other people may have differing views to them.
There seems to be safety in numbers. Welcome back Mr Wibbs.

Some of us are of the view that "helping" vulnerable individuals by grandstanding about stupid words is roughly on a level with neckbeards "helping" abused women by dressing up as giant fannies.

sligojoek

Keyzer wrote: »

We still have brownout's if that makes you feel any better.

Nah.. Not the same.

Sorry about that

jimgoose wrote: »

Some of us are of the view that "helping" vulnerable individuals by grandstanding about stupid words is roughly on a level with neckbeards "helping" abused women by dressing up as giant fannies.

Of course you all are entitled to believe whatever you wish. I presented my opinions, the campaign from the Special Olympics movement, but you are not for turning. Fair play.

Your brave anonymous pack mentality has surprised me. Always be kind folks.

jimgoose

Sorry about that wrote: »

Of course you all are entitled to believe whatever you wish. I presented my opinions, the campaign from the Special Olympics movement, but you are not for turning. Fair play.

Your brave anonymous pack mentality has surprised me. Always be kind folks.

What on Earth are you talking about?? I agree with you! :pac:

What I don't agree with a complete blanket ban on words.

Wibbs

jimgoose wrote: »

Some of us are of the view that "helping" vulnerable individuals by grandstanding about stupid words is roughly on a level with neckbeards "helping" abused women by dressing up as giant fannies.

For the most part it's just another iteration of the holier than thou craw thumpers which crop up across many subjects.

Sorry about that wrote: »

Your brave anonymous pack mentality has surprised me. Always be kind folks.

And the craw thumpers always assume, or accuse, those that disagree with them of being unkind. Depending on context - yep that word again - there are any number of words or phrases I'd use or not use, that in other contexts I would. You'd swear I'm advocating shouting "Spa!" at special needs kids for the craic. I'm not, in case anyone's conflustered.

[Deleted User]

Ed Sheeran

jimgoose

Wibbs wrote: »

...You'd swear I'm advocating shouting "Spa!" at special needs kids for the craic. I'm not, in case anyone's conflustered.

Indeed. I don't do that either, for the record, and have been known to peer disapprovingly over my bifocals at those who did. :pac:

orourkeda1977

Tranny

newport2

Woke

orourkeda1977

newport2 wrote: »

Woke

Thats dope yo.

seekenee

Retard

Spastic

Handicap

orourkeda1977

Hambeast.

Landwhale.

Bush Pig.

Sorry about that

"And the craw thumpers always assume, or accuse, those that disagree with them of being unkind. Depending on context - yep that word again - there are any number of words or phrases I'd use or not use, that in other contexts I would. You'd swear I'm advocating shouting "Spa!" at special needs kids for the craic. I'm not, in case anyone's conflustered.

By "craw thumpers", I assume you mean me. I don't thump my craw. And I'm not going to trade insults or mock you, I have no wish to.

It's none of my business whether or not you call people names, the debate revolves around the perceived offence caused by a word.

The Rape of Lucretia

P*C has to be one of the most recent offensive term to come into common usage, and is flung around without any consideration for its deeply embedded abusive appropriation of a characteristic as basic as colour.

OK, its an acronym, but 'p***le *f c****r', with its inherent claim that those who arent P*C have no colour, are blank non-people in effect, is one of the greatest acts of arrogance by one people upon another. The exclusive club of only one colour of person classifying as being of the correct by their own reckoning is outrageous. Yet seems to be gaining ground as a passive aggressive term of abuse by the day.

Ted Johnson

Going up to an actual handicap and shouting 'retard!' in his face would be a bit ****ty alright. But calling people retards online is just slagging.

My two cents anyway.

Hercule Poirot

Ted Johnson wrote: »

Going up to an actual handicap and shouting 'retard!' in his face would be a bit ****ty alright. But calling people retards online is just slagging.

My two cents anyway.

This is the thing, I've only ever heard retard used as an insult to someone who wasn't retarded - it's like calling a white person a ******, it defies logic and is therefore deemed more acceptable

Sorry about that

Hercule Poirot wrote: »

This is the thing, I've only ever heard retard used as an insult to someone who wasn't retarded - it's like calling a white person a ******, it defies logic and is therefore deemed more acceptable

Fair point, it's not meant as more than a harmless insult- but it has jarred with people for years. It's the most crude description of a person who has a learning disability, used to make fun of someone who doesn't.

Yes I am obviously extremely emotive about this, but so is the entire movement of the Special Olympics. It is more important to those who are affected than those who are not. But yes, free speech and no harm meant, accepted.

[Deleted User]

Ted Johnson wrote: »

Going up to an actual handicap and shouting 'retard!' in his face would be a bit ****ty alright. But calling people retards online is just slagging.

My two cents anyway.

Sorry, but what is 'an actual handicap'?

Wibbs wrote: »

You'd swear I'm advocating shouting "Spa!" at special needs kids for the craic. I'm not, in case anyone's conflustered.

Nope, no-one has sworn that you're shouting at kids. BTW, they're not 'special needs kids'. Please don't define people by their disability. They are kids with disabilities.

Negative uses of 'retard', as in 'that's retarded' continues to promote negative stigma around people with intellectual disabilities.

jimgoose wrote: »

Some of us are of the view that "helping" vulnerable individuals by grandstanding about stupid words is roughly on a level with neckbeards "helping" abused women by dressing up as giant fannies.

Have you tried listening to many people with intellectual disabilities to hear their views?

animaal wrote: »

You may choose to believe that the Boards moderators have no problem with insults to people with disabilities. I choose to believe that Boards decides not to ban words that have some valid use in today's world.

I don't think the words themselves are the problem, I think it's the degree to which the speaker intends to hurt/insult.

"Retard" has a number of uses, most of which are not meant in an insulting way. As mentioned before, in aviation, plus perhaps "fire-retardant". I'm sure there are others.

And for both that word and "the 'N' word", I do think the intent is what's important. And that can't be automatically filtered.

I should be able to be able to use "the 'N' word" in a number of contexts - e.g. to quote an older literary work, or to debate use of the world in today's world. Neither use is me attempting to insult anybody.

On the other hand, banning a word just leads to other proxy words in their stead. If you ban these words, and people instead start more widely using insults such as "spook" or "golliwog" or "mongoloid", are we any better off? It's the intent that's the problem.

If you search for references to retard, you will see that the vast majority of uses (outside of this particular thread) are in an insulting context

https://www.boards.ie/search/submit/?sort=newest&date_to=&date_from=&query=retard&page=3
This promotes negative stigma for people with intellectual disabilities.
Uses of the technical term are few and far between, and there are plenty of alternative words that can be used in these contexts.

There is no reason to block other words and allow 'retard'.

One eyed Jack

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

BTW, they're not 'special needs kids'. Please don't define people by their disability. They are kids with disabilities.

You have to be taking the piss now Andrew at this stage. You know well the intent of Wibbs post, and you still had to try and find something to make yourself feel morally superior. There’s nothing wrong with referring to special needs kids if that’s what we’re talking about. That’s not “defining people by their disability”, it’s referring to a specific group of people who themselves are defined and categorised by their disability.

You’ll get some desperate fcukwit along any minute now to correct you on your use of the term ‘disability’ instead of referring to special needs kids as challenged, or “differently abled” or some other such nonsense in an effort to appear even more morally superior to you!

What you’re attempting to do is use “people first language”, and making a complete balls of it tbh. The idea of people first language is rejected by many disabled people, including organisations which represent deaf, blind and autistic people, and there are other models such as identity first language -

The most common alternative to person-first language is usually called identity-first language, as it places the identifying condition before the personal term. For example, while someone who prefers person-first language might ask to be called a "person with autism", someone who prefers identity-first language would ask to be called an "autistic person". There is no common term for use of identifying conditions as nouns, but it is not usually preferred apart from select communities, such as dwarfs. Others have proposed "person-centered language", which, instead of being a replacement linguistic rule, promotes prioritizing the preferences of those who are being referred to and argues for greater nuance in the language used to describe people and groups of people.

Hello cognitive dissonance my old friend :pac:

[Deleted User]

One eyed Jack wrote: »

You have to be taking the piss now Andrew at this stage. You know well the intent of Wibbs post, and you still had to try and find something to make yourself feel morally superior. There’s nothing wrong with referring to special needs kids if that’s what we’re talking about. That’s not “defining people by their disability”, it’s referring to a specific group of people who themselves are defined and categorised by their disability.

This is the exact issue that is caused by the constant, repeated negative stigmatising of people with intellectual disabilities. People with disabilities are absolutely NOT defined by their disability. They ARE people first, just like you and me, with all the ups, downs, strengths, weaknesses of everyone else. Some of them are fantastic, some of them are lazy as hell, some of them are obnoxious.

The term 'special needs kids' defines those kids with their disabilities - not by their hair or their size or their football skills or whatever.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

You’ll get some desperate fcukwit along any minute now to correct you on your use of the term ‘disability’ instead of referring to special needs kids as challenged, or “differently abled” or some other such nonsense in an effort to appear even more morally superior to you!

What you’re attempting to do is use “people first language”, and making a complete balls of it tbh. The idea of people first language is rejected by many disabled people, including organisations which represent deaf, blind and autistic people, and there are other models such as identity first language -

Are you the 'desperate fcukwit' given that you've come along and corrected me?

I have come across this issue in the autism sector, where there is a hot debate about people with autism vs autistic people. I haven't seen the debate in other sectors in Ireland - have you? What Irish disability organisations have rejected people-first language?

Wibbs

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Nope, no-one has sworn that you're shouting at kids. BTW, they're not 'special needs kids'. Please don't define people by their disability. They are kids with disabilities.

And yet you go right ahead and define them. :pac: One would struggle to make this up. And yet...

[Deleted User]

niggerape

[Deleted User]

Wibbs wrote: »

And yet you go right ahead and define them. :pac: One would struggle to make this up. And yet...

Nope - the difference is that I identified one aspect - something they HAVE, not something they ARE. You defined them as BEING disabled, not HAVING a disability.

That's the difference.