Retarded

Benjamin Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Mon Mar 10 15:18:33 UTC 2008


On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 11:00 AM, Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at missouri.edu> wrote:
>
>  South Park also uses the variant 'artar' as in the classic World of Warcraft
>  episode. At least I assume this is a phonological variant or 'retard'.

More commonly spelled r-tard or /r/-tard, says Urbandictionary. The
latter spelling suggests a connection to the /r/ image board on the
4chan website. (4chan is said to be responsible for many Internet
memes, including "lolcats".)


--Ben Zimmer

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