One can decisively argue that the word “retarded” has become one of the most offensive slurs vocalized in the 21st century. Recently, the media has placed attention on the negative connotation of the word retarded, as it is now used in a manner offensive to people who suffer from mental disabilities. The word, once a respectful euphemism for the term “mentally handicapped”, has now become the epitome of disrespect towards beings who are mentally handicapped. This is because of the word’s current connotation when used among members of society; retarded most commonly being utilized to reference an imbecile. Activists such as John Franklin Stephens are “global messengers” who articulate to the world why the word “retarded” is a derogatory term that isolates mentally
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The word retarded can occasionally be traced back to the 15th-century, but its first adaptation and application in writing is accepted to be in the 18th-century. “Retarded” is the past participle adjective of the verb retard and originally served as a polite term to reference people who were slower and faced mental hindrances. The word retard derives directly from two parent languages: from 13th-century Latin retardare means to make slowly, delay, and to keep back as well as 15th-century French retarder means to restrain and hold back. Around 1970, the word retarded started to develop a negative stigma and became the equivalent to the meaning of the word stupid. Authors and intellectuals started to decrease their usage of the term retarded which is supported through the graph of data provided on Google Ngram. It was around 1970 when there was a sharp dip in the graph which meant there was a sudden decline in the number of times retarded would appear for every billion words written or spoken. It can be assumed that this sharp decline was due to the newfound connotation of the term retarded that developed, going from a polite euphemism for mentally handicapped to one of that
The word retarded can occasionally be traced back to the 15th-century, but its first adaptation and application in writing is accepted to be in the 18th-century. “Retarded” is the past participle adjective of the verb retard and originally served as a polite term to reference people who were slower and faced mental hindrances. The word retard derives directly from two parent languages: from 13th-century Latin retardare means to make slowly, delay, and to keep back as well as 15th-century French retarder means to restrain and hold back. Around 1970, the word retarded started to develop a negative stigma and became the equivalent to the meaning of the word stupid. Authors and intellectuals started to decrease their usage of the term retarded which is supported through the graph of data provided on Google Ngram. It was around 1970 when there was a sharp dip in the graph which meant there was a sudden decline in the number of times retarded would appear for every billion words written or spoken. It can be assumed that this sharp decline was due to the newfound connotation of the term retarded that developed, going from a polite euphemism for mentally handicapped to one of that