It occurred to me that "retard" may have a stronger connotation over there than it does here.
We haven't used it in the clinical sense for half a century as it was one of the early verboten terms of the pre-woke political correctness movement.
It was always a gentle insult among familiars, and that expanded once we couldn't call real retards, "retards" anymore, partially out of rebelliousness.
It's also used quite commonly as a political insult, at least since the 90s but probably earlier. "Demtards", "Progtards", "Libtards", "Leftards", even "Vaxtards". It works particularly well against the Left because of their self-presumed intellectual superiority, and because their wokeness prevents them from throwing it back in kind. The former is why it works so well for Europeans, honestly. We'd definitely use it for the French but Frenchtard just doesn't alliterate well, and we already have "Frogs" and "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" and those are hard to beat.
It was waning for awhile until it was given new life by the film Idiocracy "There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick-ass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now."
It's not the insult over here you appear to be taking it as, or maybe you just have a bee in your bonnet.
It occurred to me that "retard" may have a stronger connotation over there than it does here.
We haven't used it in the clinical sense for half a century as it was one of the early verboten terms of the pre-woke political correctness movement.
It was always a gentle insult among familiars, and that expanded once we couldn't call real retards, "retards" anymore, partially out of rebelliousness.
It's also used quite commonly as a political insult, at least since the 90s but probably earlier. "Demtards", "Progtards", "Libtards", "Leftards", even "Vaxtards". It works particularly well against the Left because of their self-presumed intellectual superiority, and because their wokeness prevents them from throwing it back in kind. The former is why it works so well for Europeans, honestly. We'd definitely use it for the French but Frenchtard just doesn't alliterate well, and we already have "Frogs" and "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" and those are hard to beat.
It was waning for awhile until it was given new life by the film Idiocracy "There are plenty of 'tards out there living really kick-ass lives. My first wife was 'tarded. She's a pilot now."
It's not the insult over here you appear to be taking it as, or maybe you just have a bee in your bonnet.
You were doing well until your last paragraph. A retard is a retard.
Don’t say “we”. You know exactly what YOU are doing. Americans and Europeans are brothers, built from the same foundation.
YOU are a disgrace.
Yes, we're brothers. And my brother is a retard. Both statements are true.