I am so glad you posted this. Sometimes I get into little arguments about word usage and younger folk truly don’t understand how not only commonplace word usage that is considered some sort of insult now but how officially they were used. Near me was a place that helped folks with all sorts of independent living including housing and job training and just counseling and it was called the NSAR and Im almost sure the R was retardation. Think it changed its name and I can’t find anything on it now but I did find like this https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/70s/70/70s-WWH-NARC.pdf
It’s hard to fully explain how the reception of words change to people who haven’t seen it first-hand.
Even some bad words, which might be incredibly rude to say today, didn’t have the same oomph in the past, so while the definition technically might not have changed, the intended severity of it has.
I am so glad you posted this. Sometimes I get into little arguments about word usage and younger folk truly don’t understand how not only commonplace word usage that is considered some sort of insult now but how officially they were used. Near me was a place that helped folks with all sorts of independent living including housing and job training and just counseling and it was called the NSAR and Im almost sure the R was retardation. Think it changed its name and I can’t find anything on it now but I did find like this https://mn.gov/mnddc/parallels2/pdf/70s/70/70s-WWH-NARC.pdf
It’s hard to fully explain how the reception of words change to people who haven’t seen it first-hand.
Even some bad words, which might be incredibly rude to say today, didn’t have the same oomph in the past, so while the definition technically might not have changed, the intended severity of it has.