Used to use the word ‘retarded’ to describe people doing dumb things. Then I realized that not only was it hurtful to people with Down Syndrome - it was inaccurate … as a person with Down Syndrome would not do the things I was attributing to the phrase.

That one’s still unfortunately commonplace. The term isn’t used in professional circles anymore because it now just means “stupid.”

Yea, I’ll correct anyone who says it. People may not love it, but there needs to be people calling out other people for shit. A little different direction, but still similar, is men calling out other men for sexist shit. Sexist men often don’t listen to women, but the moment their buddy says something they start to think.

You may lose a few friends doing this, but the people you probably want to be hanging out with will respect you more for it. I find people appreciate being willing to call them out, it takes guts. It takes a real man to call out sexist little boys, and also those who still use the outdated term “retarded” to call someone stupid.

I feel like ‘retard’ is insensitive to use in current times, but it will have a similar progression to the word idiot. Idiot used to be a medical term, and now it is considered pretty tame. I am curious to see if 20 or 30 years from now the word still has the same hurtful connotation to it.

It is also a term used in physics. To retard as a verb means to slow. I feel like it can still be used respectfully in an academic sense.

As far as calling people out for using words in a hurtful way, I am all for it.