I didn’t learn until an embarrassingly late age that you shouldn’t say “jewed them down” or “I got gypped” when discussing prices, etc. Once it dawned on me what I was saying, I felt pretty mortified, but I grew up hearing them as normal words. It was just a thing you say.
Same with me. Didn’t even think of where it came from.
Information superhighway
Surfing the world wide web. Sounds so dumb now.
We were so full of hope.
Now it’s just a series of tubes
Calling others gay or disabled as a slur.
I’m old enough that teachers referred to us as the “retarded kids” not to our face at least but when they thought we couldn’t hear them.
By us I meant the learning disabled.
We had a campaign in Canada called “‘That’s so gay’ is so yesterday” when I was in school. A lot of classrooms had stickers or posters with that quote. IDK how well it worked in general but definitely had an effect on me, especially since I was at an age where I didn’t really understand what homosexuality even was, and one of my first exposures to the word was that it’s not okay to use it as an insult.
Retard.
deleted by creator
I hate how that word became pejorative, because it was used correctly. By the way, it’s still used in plumbing. Retard is a verb which means to slow, e.g. retard the flow. When you call a person who is developmentally disabled that, yes it’s rude, but it means their mental process is slow. The word was being used accurately. It’s just not nice to say.
I don’t think “window licker” was ever accurate, but for some reason it’s slightly more socially acceptable to say (or imply, e.g. “I will say this for him, his windows are always clean”).
There’s a few term of that kind of age which were like that. Medical terms or just plain English words that became labelled “derogatory” because of how they were used. I always felt it showed how poor the vocabulary of some people was. If they only knew the derogatory meaning they’d get offended by it’s use in all situations even if the meaning was innocent.
“Everyone’s always asking me: ‘What are you doing, retard?’, but nobody ever asks 'How are you doing, retard?'”
How are you doing retard?
❤️
I really try not to say this out loud. Im mostly successful. Its deeply imprinted.
Eh, I use it for very stupid people. Obviously devoid of ableist intent.
I feel as though the context matters with this. For the genuinely evil and criminally unintelligent I would use the clinical “Mentally retarded”.
“Retard” and music (low volume) on buses are the controversial hills I’m willing to die on.
