The R-word

I am old enough to remember when that word was considered a neutral way of describing a person that today we call "developmentally delayed."  (I guess it still okay to say that lowering the temperature of a reaction vessel had retarded formation of the end product.)

I used the word in a History of the 14th Amendment class (to the upset of a student) when discussing Buck v. Bell (1927) which upheld mandatory sterilization of the "developmentally delayed," and which gave us progressive Justice Holmes' memorably nasty, "Three generations of idiots are enough."  I was not just quoting the word, unfortunately.   I think I just slipped into the idiomatic use because of intellectual infection by Holmes' decision. 

Anyway, this 5/31/25 CNN article about the reemergence of the word is slightly annoying.  It is annoying because it is playing into the whole Newspeak, "If the word does not exist, the concept cannot be thought."  It is also annoying because people that should know better seem to be using it in an intentionally offensive way,  or at least failing to consider if it might be best to avoid causing unnecessary offense.   "Offend with substance not with style."

Of course,  many years ago, in an employment commission hearing, a former co-worker engaged in a gratuitous description of me as "socially retarded."  I laughed but, in retrospect,  I think he was right.