Saturday, April 14, 2007

Retro Insults: Are they bad?

Spoiler Alert!

I just learned the secret of The Prestige. I'm usually not quite so dense, but I totally missed the trick on this one. My friend King explained it to me, and I was all, What?! It's a cloning machine?! Now it's so obvious that I feel completely retarded.

And that comment right there brings up the question: Should I even be saying "I feel retarded"? I don't want to be mean and offensive, nor do I want to hurt somebody's feelings. But that word retarded is so retro funny that I find it hard to resist.

So my question is, why is it wrong for me to use that word? Let me guess: It's offensive and disrespectful to mentally disabled people. But why is it offensive and disrespectful to somebody who is mentally disabled? How is it disrespectful? I'm serious here. Is it worse than using the word "psycho" outside of the clinical context of psychotic?

If you are persuasive enough, I will remove it from my vocabulary.

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