Is the word "autistic" going to go the way of "ret*d"?

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Daniel89
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12 Jun 2018, 9:41 pm

Nekomonster wrote:

Perhaps as an insult, but "autistic" is a legitimate medical term that would be harder to phase out than "ret*d."

ret*d is a scientific term, smoking ret*ds growth for instance.

Exuvian
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12 Jun 2018, 9:58 pm

Daniel89 wrote:

Nekomonster wrote:

Perhaps as an insult, but "autistic" is a legitimate medical term that would be harder to phase out than "ret*d."

ret*d is a scientific term, smoking ret*ds growth for instance.

Yep, and that's a good point as it was also the idea behind the word as originally applied to people with intellectual disabilities. Then the usage shifted to be un-scientifically applied as a general affront to people without actual disability. This parallels the shifting usage of "autistic" too.

[Edit] - Also, 'see definition #2' applies again as the water is already muddy with the term "autistic" as a non-medical reference.

Last edited by Exuvian on 12 Jun 2018, 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

lostonearth35
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12 Jun 2018, 9:59 pm

I don't think the word autistic is bad, but the way NTs misuse the word is bad. It's like when they say someone is gay when they think they're stupid. I once knew a guy in school whose favorite phrase was "don't be gay". He would say it at least twenty times during a conversation with his friends. :roll:

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13 Jun 2018, 1:06 am

Daniel89 wrote:

Nekomonster wrote:

Perhaps as an insult, but "autistic" is a legitimate medical term that would be harder to phase out than "ret*d."

ret*d is a scientific term, smoking ret*ds growth for instance.

ret*d was a psychiatric diagnosis, as was moron and imbecile. When they became insults they were dropped as diagnosis. I do not see why that could not happen with autism.

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Biskit69
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13 Jun 2018, 6:56 am

no because people aren't that dumb

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Exuvian
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13 Jun 2018, 7:02 am

Biskit69 wrote:

no because people aren't that dumb

I've seen a lot of Youtube comments... I'm not so sure.

leejosepho
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13 Jun 2018, 8:09 am

Exuvian wrote:

Biskit69 wrote:

no because people aren't that dumb

I've seen a lot of Youtube comments... I'm not so sure.

Yes, and that is because "dumb" is not the issue. So many people today believe life is some kind of contact sport where there must be "losers" so they can view themselves as superior, better-than-them "winners"...and *that* is the problem.

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13 Jun 2018, 7:04 pm

Murphy's Law

Exuvian
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13 Jun 2018, 8:16 pm

Hollywood_Guy wrote:

Murphy's Law

"whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."?
That's probably about right.

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13 Jun 2018, 9:22 pm

And here's a note, the word "ret*d/ed" just meant slow, so when "ret*d" became an insult, it must have also become corrupted into "stupid" (as in "intellectually disabled"), so "stupid" and "slow" become conflated to the point where "slow" itself has in some cases actually put off alarms in people's heads about those mocking I.D. Now, we have all three meanings (slow, mentally disabled, then general slur) conflated into one.

Insane guys...

naturalplastic
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14 Jun 2018, 6:43 am

Hollywood_Guy wrote:

Not exactly. Your chronology is a bit off.

Back in 1930's doctors and shrinks actually used terms like "imbecile","idiot", and "moron", as clinical terms for the intellectually disabled.

After the war the medical community decided not to use loaded terms like that anymore. So they adopted the fancy French word for "delayed", which is "ret*d", as the new, nicer, term for what the folks they use to call morons and so on. That is "low IQ".

And of course the term "ret*d" itself leaked out into the public lingo (including kids on the playground) to mean "intellectually impaired" (ie "stupid").

So when the public (ie school kids) got a hold of the term "ret*d" , and used it as an epithet, back when we Boomers were all in gradeschool in the Fifties/sixties it had already been used by science as a clinical term for low IQ individuals.

leejosepho
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14 Jun 2018, 11:26 am

naturalplastic wrote:

...back when we Boomers were all in gradeschool in the Fifties/sixties it had already been used by science as a clinical term for low IQ individuals.

One of my neighbors in the late-50s and throughout the 60s was a child I would now guess was low-functioning autistic, but back then he had been diagnosed and institutionalized (for a time) as "ret*d". Overall, however, the term "ret*d" was seldom used by anyone in our rural community because people were compassionate and knew the proper meaning of its root.

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14 Jun 2018, 4:16 pm

Biskit69 wrote:

no because people aren't that dumb

Yes, they are.

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14 Jun 2018, 4:23 pm

Hollywood_Guy wrote:

While "ret*d", "stupid" were pejoratives, "slow" was a neutral descriptor in my area.

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14 Jun 2018, 6:14 pm

Exuvian wrote:

Biskit69 wrote:

no because people aren't that dumb

I've seen a lot of Youtube comments... I'm not so sure.

The YT comment section is the big balrog of stupid. Please never take seriously what is written on there.

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