I called a disabled person a retard

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

Would you really identify somebody as stupid due to their sense of humour?

I would. Ricky Gervais being a case in point.

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

Good point, except Ricky Gervais isn't stupid. Not even remotely so.

Maybe not, but he is a bit retarded.

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Well since retard is a word that has other uses besides the derogatory one it shouldn't be filtered out.

N****r has other uses too. There's a colour called n****r brown (although I don't think it's used anymore). Actually the word simply meant black until it became a form of abuse.

The origin of the word "******" is in the Latin "niger," meaning "black." The word, as "niger," entered into Spanish and Portuguese. Early Modern French obtained it from Portuguese where it became "negre" and "negro," respectively. English acquired the word from French, which was manifested in earlier English variants, such as "negar," "neegar," "neger," and "niggor." "Neger" is a current word in both Dutch and German, as well as Scandinavian languages.

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/****_%28word%29

I don't think the actual word retard is bad in itself but usually in a thread like this it does end up as an excuse to make fun of the disabled, usually by the same people who pretend to be shocked by racial abuse.

Deus Ex Machina wrote: »

That doesn't follow logically. You could call them insensitive perhaps, or differing to you in their sense of humour, but you can't call them stupid based on that alone.

Perhaps it's not logical but I'm going to go out on a limb and call them stupid anyway.

Not sure if there's many Mensa members sending around that f*cking 'I can count to potato' picture online, what do you think?

I use the word retard all the time, usually to refer to people / idiots that do incredibly stupid / ignorant things. I never use it or any word like it to refer to someone with a disability of any kind. Most of the time I actually refer to people as retards because ironically enough their ignorance and supposed 'normality' is considered perfectly acceptable by society, as opposed to people who have a disability who in many ways aren't accepted and respected by society.

But at the same time I think people have a tendency to go a bit OTT with words and PCness, and it's tiresome.

Bla.