Confession

[Papa Bear]

(04-22-2012 02:28 PM)amyrose5 Wrote:  I hate de facto word banning. A moron friend of my husband's once chewed me out for the following statement: "Something is retarding the growth of my dad's tomato plants this year".

I was told that under no circumstances will he allow anyone in his presence to use the word "retarded"! Me: "I didn't. And I was talking about plants." Then he accused me of comparing CD (never heard that one, what does it stand for?) people to tomato plants. I refrained from asking him when he was going to reach the bottom of stupid in the conversation.

The Jacobson Brake, or Jake Brake, on semitrailer trucks (technically, it's on the tractor) is also called the retarder, because it slows the truck down. The musical term meaning "slow the tempo" is ritardando. But once a word gets on some people's "bad word" list, they can't stand to let anyone use it, ever, not even when they are using it properly.

CD, depending who you ask, means "cognitively disabled" or "cognitively delayed". "Delayed" is usually only applied to children. It's not the term that's the problem, it's using it as an insult. Now that "hyper" is forbidden, kids insult each other with ADHD. My son has autism, and his IQ falls in the moderately mentally retarded range. I don't go around calling him or anyone else a "retard", but I refuse to get on the euphemism treadmill.