"ret*d"

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Do you hate this word?

No.

I hated being called that when I was little but I had no clue what the word was then. I haven't hated it 1ce I learned what it was. I wasn't getting called that anymore then & nowadays it's used as a slang expression in place of the word Stupid & slang use doesn't bother me. I just hate it being used in certain circumstances but it's not the word itself that I hate but rather that somebody's using it & I would hate it if words like Stupid & Dumb were used in those situations.

Yeah. I find it crass and insensitive.

No, I use it all the time. For example, when I bake, my dough is ret*d because I let it rise under light refrigeration to slow the yeast down and develop better flavor, and I work on pistols that use a ret*d gas blow back mechanism, among other things. As to people with mental deficiencies, I prefer the term "slow" in casual usage, but don't really have a problem with ret*d either, though I'm not going to call someone either to their face, cause that would be rude.

I forgot to say that I use the slang expression sometimes in place of a phrase like "extremely stupid" or "extremely moronic" or for something that makes no sense; like "That's a retorted rule" or "The cat's being retorted because she followed me in the bathroom, then scratched at the door to be let out & when I let her out while I was still in there she started mewoing at the door to come back in."

I find that word to be elitist and insensitive. I also see it as a left over artifact from Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Nope.

It's tricky too when you have to deal with someone who really does seem to be mentally disabled in some way, and you have describe that in the most sensitive way possible. I had to recommend that my boss get rid of a new hire a few months back because the guy was simply not capable of handling the work, and after weeks of trying to train him, had decided that the guy really did have some sort of cognitive problem based on the kinds of errors he was making. In that case, the word I used was "slow", but "mildly ret*d" would have also been an accurate description. Keep in mind that I was using these terms in the technical sense, not as an insult to try and hurt someone, but simply to accurately describe the behavior I was seeing from someone I was around.

I never associated the word Retorted with sensitivity. People who are don't like using that word; it's the equivalent of calling someone really short & m***et instead of Little Person. Instead of using the word Retorted say something like Special or Mentally Challenged.

It doesn't bother me. It's just a word that used to be the proper medical, educational, and technical term for someone with a very low IQ. As far as I know it didn't become offensive until people started using it as an insult. After that, the powers that be changed the professional accepted term to something else. Eventually that will be used as a common insult and it will be changed again.

Like some others said here, I usually just say "slow". If I'm telling someone about someone who actually has mental retardation I will use the word "ret*d", in it's proper context and with it's proper meaning. If I'm using it as slang then I use it as slang.

CR said he felt it was elitist but I don't see it that way. It was the accepted textbook technical term for a long time, so in the context of "mental retardation" and describing someone correctly that way (not in an insulting or derogatory way or using it for someone who isn't) isn't elitist. If anything, the word "slow" can be seen as elitist, but it's more descriptive than "ret*d". "Slow" could imply "He's not up to our intellectual standards" but it usually isn't meant that way and I've never thought of it that way. I've always used "slow" for people who are slightly below the normal standard for understanding and learning, and "ret*d" for those who are profoundly mentally ret*d.

The word ret*d is used by both of the teachers of special needs kids that I know. It's not used for all of the special needs kids, only for those who are diagnosed as such, and of course they don't say it to or in front of them, but when discussing them with others they explain that the child is ret*d rather than having some other kind of special need, so the listener can have context for the story. It's also not used by them to describe children who are autistic unless they are also diagnosed as mentally ret*d.

I think the word has gone the way of the term "Mongoloid" which used to be used by professionals about Down's people. That word also got into the vernacular and started being bandied about as an insult, so it was dropped.