PeeperStorm on 9/9/2009 at 06:23
Quote Posted by Aerothorn
Yeah, this is lame. Incidentally, the DVD release of Tropic Thunder contained an unintentionally hilarious "public service message" in the special features about how the only R word you should ever use is "respect."
Reminds me of the current (
http://www.adcouncil.org/default.aspx?id=539) Ad Council campaign to try to get insensitive kids not to say "fag" and "gay". Because, you just
know that an ad that says "please don't do that, it's not nice" is going to make a major impact in that particular demographic. :rolleyes:
doctorfrog on 9/9/2009 at 08:13
The only way you can really get people to change from the hand-to-bosom 'offensive' words they say to their more congenial alternatives is to make the alternatives at least as short and as fun to say as the words they're meant to replace.
Fuckin' retarded otherwise.
Kolya on 9/9/2009 at 10:53
You think you got it bad. German has marked gender on nouns. It's a purely grammatical gender (genus), disconnected from biological gender (sexus), which makes it an endless source of fun for people learning German, eg "die Person" is female, no matter if it means a man or a woman.
Nevertheless some mentally challenged feminists decided that it's discriminating towards women when words have a male grammatical gender, eg "der Student". So they played around with camelBacks for a while, but you can't say "StudentInnen" and still mean both genders. So they came up with using participle verb forms as nouns: "der/die Studierende" (the studying). Of course the majority (including female students) kept on using the regular form, but the PC crowd nearly managed to establish the participle verb form as a parallel existing official form.
Back on topic: I think you can say "retarded" without any association to handicapped people. Someone can be slow-thinking without it being a condition after all. "Gay" on the other hand uses the association with actual gay people to denounce something or someone as effeminate/weak/bad, which is actually insulting to gays.
raevol on 9/9/2009 at 11:07
Quote Posted by Kolya
Back on topic: I think you can say "retarded" without any association to handicapped people. Someone can be
slow-thinking without it being a condition after all.
This. I came here to post to the same effect.
(
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/retardation)
It's sort of like calling something "lame". You're not trying to insult cripples, you're using the word for the non-anthrocentric meaning.
SubJeff on 9/9/2009 at 12:01
Its a bit like ghey/gay now isn't it?
My fav is the "obese" issue in the UK. Some bright spark total imbecile suggested we stop describing obese kids as obese because its bad for their self esteem.
What are we supposed to call them? Lard arses? Fatty bom boms?
Wherever this retard reclamation is coming from never forget that we, the British, are the Kings of Political Correctness Gone Mad.
rachel on 9/9/2009 at 12:10
Well you're brits, "Hello young lard" is just one extra letter ;)
DDL on 9/9/2009 at 12:13
I liked the Stonewall poster that said "SOME PEOPLE ARE GAY. GET OVER IT", that some enterprising fellow had decided to embellish by scribbling "LOL GAYS" at the bottom in spraypaint.
Clearly getting the message across there. :D
june gloom on 9/9/2009 at 12:17
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
What are we supposed to call them? Lard arses? Fatty bom boms?
I nominate "fatty bom bom" if only because the "bom bom" part is making me laugh.
Queue on 9/9/2009 at 13:03
Quote Posted by Kolya
Back on topic: I think you can say "retarded" without any association to handicapped people. Someone can be
slow-thinking without it being a condition after all. "Gay" on the other hand uses the association with actual gay people to denounce something or someone as effeminate/weak/bad, which is actually insulting to gays.
How dare you bring this back on topic.
