8 ms·

I agree completely with your points, and I'm sorry be that guy, but "literally retarded" is offensive language and is frankly below the level of discourse of HN

by Naga 6y ago

I agree completely with your points, and I'm sorry be that guy, but "literally retarded" is offensive language and is frankly below the level of discourse of HN. I'm not one to be the PC police but really, come on. You can make your argument without resulting to slurs like that. https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-the-r-word-3105651 https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-is-the-r-word-3105651

StavrosK 6y ago
While I agree, the word itself doesn't seem to be particularly offensive, no? It's a matter of using it in an offensive manner, which means that even if we move on to "disabled" now, that's soon going to meet the same fate. I think we should strive not to use mental disability in a derogatory manner, no matter the word.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  This word has gained hurtful and harmful connotations. Usually you can wait long enough and cycle them back in, but increased access to old books and – now – the internet has given us longer cultural memories, so it might never lose its slur connotations.
  - g63wchueuo 6y ago
    tho shalt never name their child karen, until such connotations have absolved.
    - Firehawke 6y ago
      Well, you certainly won't choose names with nary a Karen the world.
- g63wchueuo 6y ago
  thats just it tho. no retards were harmed in writing that sentence. any retards here disagree? instead what we have is a group of people offended on behalf of retards, which is itself retarded
  - craftinator 6y ago
    Dead.
    - g63wchueuo 6y ago
      i stand corrected
wizzwizz4 6y ago
Language isn't inherently offensive; it offends people. In this instance, you¹'re hurting, offending and low-level ostracising a totally different group of people to the ones you¹'re trying to offend. If you¹ want to use a slur, choose a better one. ___ ¹: “you” means the grandparent comment (GP)
- graeme 6y ago
  I genuinely can’t tell who you’re referring to. The parent to your comment is the one you’re replying to, but it sounds like you’re addressing the grandparent?
  - wizzwizz4 6y ago
    I am; thanks. Corrected.
Ajedi32 6y ago
Don't necessarily disagree with you, but seeing as "the r word" is no longer used to refer to mentally disabled people it seems a little late to be campaigning to end its use as a pejorative _now_. If anything, these efforts should be directed towards ending the use of "autism" in a pejorative context, as if that trend isn't stopped then that term is up next on the euphemism treadmill. I also wonder if perhaps these sort of concerted efforts to treat certain words as unacceptable to say might actually be giving those words _more_ power than they otherwise would have. After all, "idiot" used to refer to mentally disabled people and few would consider that word to be particularly offensive today.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  We can attend to more than one abuse of language at once. "Idiot" and other discourse-terminaring slurs have no place on HN. It's not the word that's the problem, it's the intended meaning. The euphemism treadmill is when people keep changing words instead of communicating better.
  - nate_meurer 6y ago
    Except GP didn't use the word "retard" to terminate discourse, or to shortcut debate or insult anyone in this thread. The word was purely descriptive, and this context, quite appropriate and illustrative. I can think of no other single word that better describes the behavior of the E-Ink patent holders.
    - Karawebnetwork 6y ago
      > I can think of no other single word that better describes the behavior of the E-Ink patent holders. This is the central point of this issue. This person uses a word that used to mean "person with a mental health problem" to describe a situation where a company "lacks intelligence and awareness". People who have been and still are the victims of this insult do not want to be associated with the concept of "lack of intelligence". Write the same sentence without using the slur as a crutch. "The company that holds the patents for electronic ink has an [intellectual disability]". In this format, it is very clear that this wording is problematic. In any case, it is simply bad writing. There are many other ways to describe what this company does without using a word that comes with a heavy medical and social history.
pid_0 6y ago
Is this really necessary? Retard is not used to refer to people with mental disabilities. It is not a slur. Its a new social justice campaign to get mad about something when they ran out of things to complain about. Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. Why aren't they campaigning to ban those words too?
- darkwater 6y ago
  > Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. No, they were not. And despite what the "you get offended so quickly" mob says, "retarded" main meaning when used in a negative fashion against someone always, always appeals to the "that person/entity has the mental abilities of someone with Down syndrome or any other similar intellectual disability". And you, me and everybody else KNOW this. You just decided that this won't trouble you.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    > No, they were not. Yes, they were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot > An idiot, in modern use, is a stupid or foolish person. > It was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology) > Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability.[1] The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement.[2] Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to imbecile and idiot.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile > The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.[1][2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.[3] It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between "idiot" (IQ of 0–25) and "moron" (IQ of 51–70).[4] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49.[5]
bzb6 6y ago
You say you’re sorry to be that guy, but you seem happy to be that guy. Don’t be that guy, because it’s your comment and the successive noise that is below the level of discourse of HN, making this discussion pretty retarded.
Karsteski 6y ago
Your offense offends me. What do we do about Thai situation now?
- canadianfella 6y ago
  Thai?
ThePower 6y ago
wonderful response from all of you to a very annoying comment from Naga. "Your offense offends me" is exactly how I feel.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
alexfrydl 6y ago
I was thinking that this word is not, in fact, below the level of discourse of HN and based on the other replies I don't believe I even have to back this statement up.
minikites 6y ago
I agree and the people who are tying themselves into knots to justify using the r-word reminds of people who pointedly use the word "niggardly" instead of any number of synonyms just to get a rise out of the audience.
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  You just justified to yourself a reason to use an even more controversial word out of the blue in a contrived way. I hope you were being intentionally ironic.
  - minikites 6y ago
    It's less controversial than the r-word, which is why it's a good analogy. People who insist that it's okay to say one usually insist that it's okay to say the other one, because they don't understand the ways words hurt people.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      It's less controversial than the r-word I'm not sure that's true. About a decade ago some prominent politician or other official was publicly excoriated for using "niggardly" correctly. I don't think anyone's lost their job for using "retarded" in its academic form.
      - minikites 6y ago
        >I don't think anyone's lost their job for using "retarded" in its academic form. I could be convinced otherwise, but I believe that's a result of more people knowing not to use it, the same way you don't hear much about people getting fired for saying the actual n-word. "Person gets fired for saying technically correct word" is more 'newsworthy' than "Person gets fired for saying obvious slur". I did find this, although the person who was fired also made racial comments in addition to saying the r-word: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-lost-job-after-12462935 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-lost-j...
fortran77 6y ago
This is why Hacker News is a big joke among real tech leaders. Literally. https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  And the people on a lol reddit are the real tech leaders?
- gregallan 6y ago
  I suppose you consider all 87 of the members of that subreddit to be the "real tech leaders", then?
reaperducer 6y ago
I once worked next door to a charity that had a name something like "Association For Retarded Citizens." It was very well loved and respected in the community. Then the 1990's happened and it changed its name to something more politically correct like "Association For Individuals Of Differing Abilities." I found out when the big sign out front that i used to park by was changed. A year or so later, the sign changed again. Back to "Association For Retarded Citizens." There was an article in one of the newspapers saying that donations dried up because nobody knew who they were or what they did anymore. Just an interesting anecdote.
nate_meurer 6y ago
As a synonym for "inexplicably, self-destructively foolish", the word "retarded" is effective, illustrative, and even more concise. As I said elsewhere downthread, I can't offhand come up with a better single phrase to describe the crew in charge of the E-Ink patents. And yes, I'm sure that says more about my limited linguistic faculties than anything else. I do think it's important to point out that your taken offense is entirely your opinion. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, and I trust that you're coming from a good place, but I feel it's also important to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of language that you might be personally offended by.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  > it's also important to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of language that you might be personally offended by. I appreciate the emphasis on usefulness rather than right or wrong. I certainly didn’t interpret “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” when I read the comment and apparently that extends to others too, which also speaks to usefulness or lack thereof. On the internet, writing anonymously to a large anonymous group is very very much communication on hard mode. Things like Poe’s law reign supreme. If your goal is to get idea X into as many of the comment readers’ heads as possible, then it’s useful to use language that means the same thing to as many of those readers as possible. I think that’s what people mean when they talk about “inclusive” language? The HN style generally seems to be choosing the clear inclusive phrasing over the stylistic(?) phrasing, choosing “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” over “literally retarded.” (Not trying to be language police. Just a language nerd who likes to talk about language.)

by Naga 6y ago

StavrosK 6y ago

While I agree, the word itself doesn't seem to be particularly offensive, no? It's a matter of using it in an offensive manner, which means that even if we move on to "disabled" now, that's soon going to meet the same fate. I think we should strive not to use mental disability in a derogatory manner, no matter the word.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
This word has gained hurtful and harmful connotations. Usually you can wait long enough and cycle them back in, but increased access to old books and – now – the internet has given us longer cultural memories, so it might never lose its slur connotations.
- g63wchueuo 6y ago
  tho shalt never name their child karen, until such connotations have absolved.
  - Firehawke 6y ago
    Well, you certainly won't choose names with nary a Karen the world.
g63wchueuo 6y ago
thats just it tho. no retards were harmed in writing that sentence. any retards here disagree? instead what we have is a group of people offended on behalf of retards, which is itself retarded
- craftinator 6y ago
  Dead.
  - g63wchueuo 6y ago
    i stand corrected

wizzwizz4 6y ago

Language isn't inherently offensive; it offends people. In this instance, you¹'re hurting, offending and low-level ostracising a totally different group of people to the ones you¹'re trying to offend. If you¹ want to use a slur, choose a better one. ___ ¹: “you” means the grandparent comment (GP)

graeme 6y ago
I genuinely can’t tell who you’re referring to. The parent to your comment is the one you’re replying to, but it sounds like you’re addressing the grandparent?
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  I am; thanks. Corrected.

Ajedi32 6y ago

Don't necessarily disagree with you, but seeing as "the r word" is no longer used to refer to mentally disabled people it seems a little late to be campaigning to end its use as a pejorative _now_. If anything, these efforts should be directed towards ending the use of "autism" in a pejorative context, as if that trend isn't stopped then that term is up next on the euphemism treadmill. I also wonder if perhaps these sort of concerted efforts to treat certain words as unacceptable to say might actually be giving those words _more_ power than they otherwise would have. After all, "idiot" used to refer to mentally disabled people and few would consider that word to be particularly offensive today.

alisonkisk 6y ago
We can attend to more than one abuse of language at once. "Idiot" and other discourse-terminaring slurs have no place on HN. It's not the word that's the problem, it's the intended meaning. The euphemism treadmill is when people keep changing words instead of communicating better.
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  Except GP didn't use the word "retard" to terminate discourse, or to shortcut debate or insult anyone in this thread. The word was purely descriptive, and this context, quite appropriate and illustrative. I can think of no other single word that better describes the behavior of the E-Ink patent holders.
  - Karawebnetwork 6y ago
    > I can think of no other single word that better describes the behavior of the E-Ink patent holders. This is the central point of this issue. This person uses a word that used to mean "person with a mental health problem" to describe a situation where a company "lacks intelligence and awareness". People who have been and still are the victims of this insult do not want to be associated with the concept of "lack of intelligence". Write the same sentence without using the slur as a crutch. "The company that holds the patents for electronic ink has an [intellectual disability]". In this format, it is very clear that this wording is problematic. In any case, it is simply bad writing. There are many other ways to describe what this company does without using a word that comes with a heavy medical and social history.

pid_0 6y ago

Is this really necessary? Retard is not used to refer to people with mental disabilities. It is not a slur. Its a new social justice campaign to get mad about something when they ran out of things to complain about. Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. Why aren't they campaigning to ban those words too?

darkwater 6y ago
> Guess what, stupid, moron, idiot, etc used to refer to people with mental disabilities. No, they were not. And despite what the "you get offended so quickly" mob says, "retarded" main meaning when used in a negative fashion against someone always, always appeals to the "that person/entity has the mental abilities of someone with Down syndrome or any other similar intellectual disability". And you, me and everybody else KNOW this. You just decided that this won't trouble you.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  > No, they were not. Yes, they were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiot > An idiot, in modern use, is a stupid or foolish person. > It was formerly a technical term in legal and psychiatric contexts for some kinds of profound intellectual disability where the mental age is two years or less, and the person cannot guard themself against common physical dangers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moron_(psychology) > Moron is a term once used in psychology and psychiatry to denote mild intellectual disability.[1] The term was closely tied with the American eugenics movement.[2] Once the term became popularized, it fell out of use by the psychological community, as it was used more commonly as an insult than as a psychological term. It is similar to imbecile and idiot.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile > The term imbecile was once used by psychiatrists to denote a category of people with moderate to severe intellectual disability, as well as a type of criminal.[1][2] The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.[3] It included people with an IQ of 26–50, between "idiot" (IQ of 0–25) and "moron" (IQ of 51–70).[4] In the obsolete medical classification (ICD-9, 1977), these people were said to have "moderate mental retardation" or "moderate mental subnormality" with IQ of 35–49.[5]

bzb6 6y ago

You say you’re sorry to be that guy, but you seem happy to be that guy. Don’t be that guy, because it’s your comment and the successive noise that is below the level of discourse of HN, making this discussion pretty retarded.

Karsteski 6y ago

Your offense offends me. What do we do about Thai situation now?

canadianfella 6y ago
Thai?

ThePower 6y ago

wonderful response from all of you to a very annoying comment from Naga. "Your offense offends me" is exactly how I feel.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

alexfrydl 6y ago

I was thinking that this word is not, in fact, below the level of discourse of HN and based on the other replies I don't believe I even have to back this statement up.

minikites 6y ago

I agree and the people who are tying themselves into knots to justify using the r-word reminds of people who pointedly use the word "niggardly" instead of any number of synonyms just to get a rise out of the audience.

sgtnoodle 6y ago
You just justified to yourself a reason to use an even more controversial word out of the blue in a contrived way. I hope you were being intentionally ironic.
- minikites 6y ago
  It's less controversial than the r-word, which is why it's a good analogy. People who insist that it's okay to say one usually insist that it's okay to say the other one, because they don't understand the ways words hurt people.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    It's less controversial than the r-word I'm not sure that's true. About a decade ago some prominent politician or other official was publicly excoriated for using "niggardly" correctly. I don't think anyone's lost their job for using "retarded" in its academic form.
    - minikites 6y ago
      >I don't think anyone's lost their job for using "retarded" in its academic form. I could be convinced otherwise, but I believe that's a result of more people knowing not to use it, the same way you don't hear much about people getting fired for saying the actual n-word. "Person gets fired for saying technically correct word" is more 'newsworthy' than "Person gets fired for saying obvious slur". I did find this, although the person who was fired also made racial comments in addition to saying the r-word: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-lost-job-after-12462935 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-candidate-lost-j...

fortran77 6y ago

This is why Hacker News is a big joke among real tech leaders. Literally. https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LOLHackerNews/

thatguy0900 6y ago
And the people on a lol reddit are the real tech leaders?
gregallan 6y ago
I suppose you consider all 87 of the members of that subreddit to be the "real tech leaders", then?

reaperducer 6y ago

I once worked next door to a charity that had a name something like "Association For Retarded Citizens." It was very well loved and respected in the community. Then the 1990's happened and it changed its name to something more politically correct like "Association For Individuals Of Differing Abilities." I found out when the big sign out front that i used to park by was changed. A year or so later, the sign changed again. Back to "Association For Retarded Citizens." There was an article in one of the newspapers saying that donations dried up because nobody knew who they were or what they did anymore. Just an interesting anecdote.

nate_meurer 6y ago

As a synonym for "inexplicably, self-destructively foolish", the word "retarded" is effective, illustrative, and even more concise. As I said elsewhere downthread, I can't offhand come up with a better single phrase to describe the crew in charge of the E-Ink patents. And yes, I'm sure that says more about my limited linguistic faculties than anything else. I do think it's important to point out that your taken offense is entirely your opinion. You are certainly entitled to that opinion, and I trust that you're coming from a good place, but I feel it's also important to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of language that you might be personally offended by.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
> it's also important to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of language that you might be personally offended by. I appreciate the emphasis on usefulness rather than right or wrong. I certainly didn’t interpret “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” when I read the comment and apparently that extends to others too, which also speaks to usefulness or lack thereof. On the internet, writing anonymously to a large anonymous group is very very much communication on hard mode. Things like Poe’s law reign supreme. If your goal is to get idea X into as many of the comment readers’ heads as possible, then it’s useful to use language that means the same thing to as many of those readers as possible. I think that’s what people mean when they talk about “inclusive” language? The HN style generally seems to be choosing the clear inclusive phrasing over the stylistic(?) phrasing, choosing “inexplicably, self-destructively foolish” over “literally retarded.” (Not trying to be language police. Just a language nerd who likes to talk about language.)