Quote:
Originally Posted by flip
The only reason ###### is offensive is because of people like you.
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No. The reason it is offensive, which you seem completely incapable of understanding, is that it implies directly and conotatively that the person to who it is applied is of less value as a human. It's exactly the same as every racial epithet out there. Whether it is your intention or not, that is what you are both saying and implying by using the word.
It becomes most offensive when you first demonstrate that you are aware that there are perfectly acceptable substitutes, and then give no reason for disregarding them other than sheer laziness and some misguided desire to 'take back' a word to which you have absolutely no connection.
That you have no connection to this word is quite completely demonstrated by the profound lack of understanding in your first post. Subsequently, there have been a number of educators and parents in this very thread, and no doubt were you to engage in this conversation in real life you would find the same, who have been trying to explain to you why your objections are both unsound and invalid, but you have been either unable or unwilling to hear these people.
Another thing your poorly thought out defense of this word demonstrates is your lack of understanding regarding the use and evolution of language. You seem to be under the misguided impression that words a) have fixed meanings, and b) that change in language is bad.
These are both quite clearly wrong. A simple example would be that, in old english, the word for wife,
wif, was gender neutral. One referred to "that wife" or "my wife, it..." clearly this grammatical construction has negative and awkward social consequences. One could make a case, and someone's linguistics thesis has probably been written, on the genderization of the word "wife" being the first step towards gender equality.
The loss of words such as '######' or racial epithets from our language is not a bad thing, nor do all words need reclamation. Homosexuals and to a large extent blacks have reclaimed words partially due to the fact that they were frequently
killed because of their differences. The same is not necessarily true of the mentally disabled, but the discrimination against them is real, and is contained in the use of a word to describe them as a group which is dismissive of them as people.
If you choose to continue to use this word, you merely reveal yourself as both insensitive and ignorant about what it is you are doing when you use it.