Interesting Facts

The UK press (apart from the obvious ones) have all jumped on the fact that Rupert Murdoch called the British Prime Minister's disabled son 'RETARDED' whilst giving testimony at the Levenson enquiry. (Retarded comes from the French word 'retarder', and when used in the context of childhood development it  has been around for centuries, it was used as an official medical adjective to describe a mentally disabled person, but for the last few decades retarded is now deemed offensive. Why is it offensive?  Well that happens to words the moment they start to be used as an insult.  I guess around 1970 kids started to say to other kids in the playground, 'you are such a retard' or 'you are so retarded'. In 2006 the medical term 'mental retardation' was dropped by the American Association on Mental Retardation and the organisation was renamed American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. And in 2008, a poll by the BBC conclu...

The word retard was first used in 1489, but back then it meant delay, stemming from the French word "retardant". (According to etymonline.com, it was used in the sense of slow childhood development "mentally slow," from 1895 and around 1970 it took on the more offensive meaning "retarded person," in AmE. Now there's a campaign to have it removed from the English language called "The 'r' word campaign", http://therword.org/ spearheaded by Sarah Palin of all people. Good luck with getting it removed from the Urban Dictionary Ms Palin.)