Hi!

[Laurence Horn]

At 6:04 PM -0700 4/3/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>"Retard" and "retarded" were already common abusive terms when I was
>in 7th grade in NYC in 1959.
>
>   JL

And in 1956 when I was.  As usual (cf. Bolinger, Wierzbicka, and our
earlier threads on the topic), the nominal version (with its
retracted stress: REE-tard) was especially popular as a term of abuse
(cf. "spaz", "fatso",...).

LH

>James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA> wrote:
>   ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender: American Dialect Society
>Poster: James Harbeck
>Subject: Re: Hi!
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>>My, what charming language!
>
>Funny that she goes off on technical competence but can't figure out
>how to go to
>http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/ads_l_the_american_dialect_society_email_discussion_list/
>and read the instructions: "To leave the list at any time, send
>"SIGNOFF ADS-L" the complete body of an email message from the
>account which you would like to unsubscribe, to
>listserv at listserv.uga.edu." Highly intelligent people make slips of
>the finger all the time, but most of them can find out how to do what
>they want to do when they really want to do it.
>
>I was hoping there would be some fascinating usage in her email to
>focus on. Perhaps the most interesting question raised is how long
>"retarded" has been a common childish term of abuse. When I was a kid
>in the '70s, it was common among elementary and junior-high kids but
>faded a bit among high-schoolers and was uncommon, if memory serves,
>among university students (mid-'80s). But that was in Calgary.
>
>OED only gives the technical meaning; it doesn't give citations for
>the abusive meaning. I'm sure a probable date of incipience for the
>term of abuse could be estimated on the basis of when it came into
>common usage in the primary-school educational context; there would
>be some latency, no doubt, before it first appeared in print in that
>usage, little kids not being much for publishing.
>
>As to Ms. Berardinelli I hope some of her professors are on this
>list. But then they probably know what a sweetheart she is already.
>Next year, University of New Mexico will unleash this scintillating
>intellect on the world! (Assuming she doesn't flunk out.) Where, if
>she's lucky, she'll get her butt kicked enough times by enough people
>(metaphorically, of course) that she'll smarten up and grow up. She's
>studying anthropology. How sweet! I just can't wait to see what kind
>of success she'll have with research when she has no patience or
>concern for others.
>
>(How do I know all this? Because, like anyone at all, I can find it
>out with the easiest Google search. On her myspace page
>(blog.myspace.com/gekrepten) she has the headline "i say nothing for
>the good of myself". Would that it were true.)
>
>Ciao,
>James Harbeck.
>
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