popa: Excellent post about legal meaning/context/common meaning.
As for the English upper classes creating the term “polite society” to put down the lower class, please provide directions to a source. Also…
murdered someone by turning on a counterfeiting machine which I didn’t realize was hooked up to an ebola vial and set it loose
That’s an oddly specific reference, popa. I don’t say that accusatorily, of course – I’m just wondering if I’m missing a cutural reference.
“catch yourself”‘s post is pretty good, but…
should not be offensive to the clinically retarded any more than the use of the term weakling is offensive to the clinically weak. (emphasis mine)
“Should not” is the operative term here. More about this later (another post).
The intended offense is not to the “real” retarded
No – that offense is unintentional.
[the offense] is to the person whose arguments I find so preposterous that I would label them (him?) so irrational as to be “retarded”.
Why “retarded” more so than other words which imply one’s highly negative opinion of one’s opponent’s intellectual capacity, whether with pathological implications or not?
affected individual may be hurt (not offended!)
Wiktionary definitions:
offend – To hurt the feelings of; to displease; to make angry; to insult.
hurt – As verb: To cause (somebody) emotional pain. / As adjective: Pained.
I think you’re drawing a non-existent distinction.
(More soon BE”H)!)