general

if you were talking to someone high-functioning, but clearly off

oh def call them an autist

they love that

I would say, "are you on the spectrum?"

Or bold "are you disabled"

autism is cool now

See I'm government approved disabled, so i have that common ground

I have an in, so to speak

We used to curb stomp those freaks, now we ask em to write our code bases

I think it can be, but the yes option is not worded in a way I would vote for it so I abstain

I think for sure you can use it as one, but no one is using it that way when they say someone/something is retarded

I don't use the word myself, but I don't think it's necessarily that strong of a word. I don't know why it suddenly became a slur. I remember seeing someone use it casually in another server I'm in a few years back and someone got really annoyed at the guy using it and I didn't understand why.

It's just another insult, in my mind, same as me saying something is stupid. Why is stupid acceptable but retard is not? I don't really get it.

It barely registers as a contentious word, let alone a slur

I think it has more ability to be used as a slur than 99.9% of words in the english dictionary, but no one uses it that way

I don't think it's even close to slur class

where words like "Cunt" are hard to divorce from ever not being a slur

I think that is because no one uses it that way and it is just a normal word to say

Cunt isn't a slur

cunt is even less of a slur than retard

???

what is your definition of a slur lol

Vibes

mongoloid was a good one, it covered a lot of ground in one word

I think to be a slur it has to be something you would only ever use, or concieve of ever using, in reference to the thing the slur is against

if I call someone a nigger, it is clear what I am implying by inference

retard is on shaky ground, but at its core is refering to you being mentally infirm

if I call you a cunt, I am basically more rudely calling you a vagina, which I would not consider calling someone a vagina a slur more than I would calling someone a retard (I would not consider either to be a slur)

retard has general utility as a word, same as stupid, idiodic, insane, etc. But as an insult, it is no different to calling someone "low-IQ" which make me hard pressed to say its a slur, retard isn't a specific affliction, you don't catch "retard disease" there's no uniform group like there are for genders/races

I find "Autistic" more insulting than retard

still not a slur

You would, wouldn't you

but I think it at least is attacking a specific group

versus the broad category of "every person of lower-than-average intelligence"

or w/e the actual cutoff is for being a clinical retard

I think retard has stronger connotations than lower than average

I would not say someone who is 90IQ is a retard. The image implied is moreso 75 or lower

I think I am basically saying not only are you below average, you are nonfunctional if I am calling you a retard

isn't 70IQ a literal vegetable though

Yeah, and if I am calling you a retard, I mean you are basically a vegtable

at which point you're not a person

Apparently the historic cutoff was 85

Okay, spooky, read googles AI thing I just got and tell me its not a slur

you are basically calling them black

rather than a number, since IQs are supposed to just be a bell curve

it's the bottom X% of people

and I've always assumed the bottom ~20% are probably retard-class

I have never assumed it to be that exclusive

so yeah, somewhere around here

Yeah was about to say, standard dev is about 15

Anyways the fact that they had to raise the cutoff for black people is all I need to say

my case rests

its a slur

lol

After this research, I am voting yes

Retard is too formal to be a slur. For something to be a slur it must be either a mispronounciation or a shortening of an existing word.

Like how Bob is a slur for people named Rob.

What makes something a slur is not the meaning or the harshness of the word, but rather the etymology and how it was invented.

I don't think it is a slur, however I am careful about who I say it around https://www.instagram.com/p/DY6ZXVQOkVJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

all of these slur debates are funny because they don't really apply to me being a non native English speaker, but because Dutch people use Dutch and English interchangeably, we still use these words like normal and no one gives a fuck

Agreed, similar to any curse. I'd stick retard in a level 3 swear word. In public, I'd say hell and damnit. At work, I'd say fuck and shit. With friends, I'd say retard and nigger.

Eh, maybe 2. I've said retard at work a lot.

on the topic of Dutch people using Dutch and English, i sometimes hear Dutch people straight up speaking English to each other, and sometimes i even say things in English to my brother for no reason

the Netherlands is basically English at this point

Is it even close in language?

close enough but not really

The spelling of Dutch sometimes looks like a fake language

compared to every other language that isn't Frisian, it can be argued that Dutch is closest

Frisian is essentially just old English before the French frenchified English

the funny thing about why English speakers think Dutch looks weird is BECAUSE it's so similar to English, giving it an uncanny feel

Would you say Dutch or German is closer to English? I thought German was basically the same.

Dutch is closer to English

but it's closer to German than English

The use of ij and z does, yeah

Well, like, I remember a lot of signs having more z's. Obv we have that, but in my mind, I know something is instantly Dutch with the ij and usually if there's a random Z in there.

ij is a huge giveaway yeah

don't know many other languages that use that as much

lots of double vowels too

or in some cases triple vowels like in pika's favourite Dutch word that he loves to pronounce