The person on the receiving end of the quip is being accused of acting like they were retarded, when they in fact aren't. The term is not used disparagingly of the mentally handicapped, only comparatively.
"retarded" is disparaging, not descriptive.
IIRC, the term "mentally retarded" (origin of retard/retarded/retardo) was originally intended to apply to certain learning disabilities. It became regarded as disparaging because the term wasn't actually descriptive of this, and was replaced by the more descriptive "developmentally disabled". Neither term is equivalent to "mentally handicapped".
Is there a difference between the vulgar and the offensive
I think part of being vulgar is being offensive in some contexts.
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|
