> Its current usage is to demean someone for their limited / different mental ability. > Why would you argue that calling someone with mental disability "retar

> Its current usage is to demean someone for their limited / different mental ability. > Why would you argue that calling someone with mental disability "retarted" isn't? No no no, that isn't what I'm saying at all. In my lifetime, it has *never* been acceptable to call someone with an IDD a retard. HOWEVER, for the better part of the last 40 years you could call another able person a retard without raising eyebrows. Within the last 5 years or so there has been an abrupt change and the word is no longer acceptable to use under any circumstances. And I'm unaware of what occurred for that shift to happen. Today if an able person said to another able person who'd broken their foot, "what's up gimpy?" it would be taken as a jest. However saying that to someone who is permanently disabled is highly offensive. The situation was the same with the word retarded up until recently.