I grew up in the era of Clueless. It was perfectly normal in middle school to call people losers and morons and say stupid things like "as if" and "totally" in a sarcastic tone... all with mixed intentions. We were too cool to like such a silly movie, but we sure did let it influence us. Another word we tossed around without a second thought was "retard." Mostly we overused/misused it and called things retarded instead of people, which is obnoxious but we thought relatively harmless.
As an adult I never ever use that word, but occasionally I hear other people use it and it really bothers me. I know they don't mean to be insulting or disrespectful, but that doesn't make it acceptable. Yesterday I was in line at the drugstore and I heard a sales associate teasing her friend and calling her a retard and I almost dropped my purse. There was a little boy and his mother in line behind me. The little boy had Downs Syndrome.. I couldn't see his mother's reaction, but my heart ached for her. The boy was only about 3 so he was too busy playing to recognize that a major PC blunder was unfolding around him.
There are certain words in the English language that I absolutely despise. These words are "on the fence words" that aren't always offensive to everyone even though they should be. Certain groups use them freely but they make me sooooo uncomfortable. One example is my friend Dean who always jokingly calls something "gay" if he thinks it's silly. Dean is gay and doesn't see anything wrong with the way he uses the word, but I can't stand it. I just want there to be offensive words and non-offensive words, so we can all agree not to use them!
So I'm not suggesting that you should eliminate every word that could possibly offend someone from your vocabulary, I'm just suggesting maybe we ought to stop a moment and think before we speak... before someone ends up putting their foot in their mouth.
My youngest brother has muscular dystrophy and had a great deal of developmental challenges due to his health and early life, so I take it pretty personally when people call each other retards.
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