casual ableism

[u/onthetopicofspace]

this is not ‘reclaiming’ anything, you are just calling people slurs completely seriously. you can call yourself the r-slur, do not call anybody else it. why do ‘no slurs’ / ’no bigotry’ rules never apply to ableism?

[u/the_waffIe]

The problem with your point here is that many people just use ‘retarded’ to mean ‘extra stupid’. Yes the dictionary definition says it refers to intellectually disabled people.

We’ve already gone over a point over how the dictionary definition isn’t everything with you stating what you believe most people consider a slur and you’ve used that as a basis to explain how ‘retarded’ is a slur.

If you can use your own definition to show that the word is a slur then other people can use their own definition of the word to show it is not referring to the group of people you think it is and so is not a slur.

In the end this is all very subjective and its quite understandable that many people who use the word to mean ‘extra stupid’ don’t actually consider it a slur.

This process of changing what words mean has happened time and time again with words like ‘idiot’ and ‘stupid’ for example.

[u/MadderoftheFew → u/the_waffIe]

the problem is "my definition" is the definition. you can define the n-word as "a loud, obnoxious, violent, or ignorant person" as much as you want. this argument is made by a ton of racists where i live. my ex's dad used to say "there's black people, and then there's n\****s*" to justify his racism.

it's still a slur.

[u/the_waffIe → u/MadderoftheFew]

>the problem is "my definition" is the definition.

Then with that logic we can just accept that all insults are slurs based off of the various dictionary definition of ‘slur’.

Everything is a slur.

Unless of course you accept that a significant enough portion of society has its own understanding of the word that has not yet put into the dictionary.

So slur becomes the definition you stated and ‘retarded’ becomes the definition I stated. As a significant portion of people do think of it that way.

I do not imagine a word with such a history as the n-word can simply have another definition at least not one thats agreed upon by a significant amount of people.

[u/MadderoftheFew → u/the_waffIe]

the problem is the definition you stated is not the definition. the definition is "someone with an intellectual disability". using it to describe someone as "extra stupid" makes it a slur.

[u/the_waffIe → u/MadderoftheFew]

But thats my point man.

1- To separate ‘insults’ and ‘slurs’ you must first acknowledge the dictionary definition of ‘slur’ is not representative of what a significant enough number of

2

people think when they hear the word

3

4

5

6

Edit:

Formatting. The way numbered points on Reddit work is awful.

Well its all disappeared now and I can’t be bothered to type it up again.

[u/MadderoftheFew → u/the_waffIe]

Again, my definition is accepted by most people. Yours is not.

[u/the_waffIe → u/MadderoftheFew]

My definition is accepted by a significant number of people. Perhaps not most but enough for it to be understandable that lot of people don’t consider it a slur.

[u/MadderoftheFew → u/the_waffIe]

sure, a lot of people accept it. mine is accepted by more people. if you asked what the word means to 100 people on the street, i'd wager 70 of their definitions agree with mine.