im pissed when people say autism and ret*d interchangeably.

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Like many people I spent a long time being bullied - mostly with words. By the end of high school it was rare that anyone would try and tease me this way. In the moment I get flustered to the point I couldn't speak so, after school and during it, I would obsessively think up replies to almost any insult I had been called or could possibly be called. I rehearsed them constantly in my head. My main tactic was taking whatever word they were turning against me and owning it. Freak was my favorite because it became like a badge of honor. By my junior year I could rebuke any insult with a scathingly sarcastic reply that left the bully embarrassed and cringing as his friends laughed at him. I was smarter than them and I made sure I used it against them every chance I could.

Words can be your best friend and they are powerful, especially when you learn how to use them to best effect. Interesting you should say 'manipulate' because I see this very clearly in media and people tell me I'm crazy and just reading into to things too much. No - I'm not. Words are chosen VERY carefully - for psychological effect. Most people can't see that or refuse to believe it which is exactly what the media, governments, ad agencies are relying on.

Your relationship with words is up to you. If you allow someone to take your personal power away with words - I do believe that is a choice, one many people don't even realize they have.

ok im sorry for my choice of words i should have said down syndrome.

sooooooo... now you're implying that there's something wrong with down syndrome?

classy.

Look, maybe we need to explain it properly. Lord knows I've made a lot of faux pas before I realized I was even doing it.

When you say that you don't want to be treated like you're ret*d, what you're really saying is, "I don't want to be treated the way they treat mentally ret*d people." And you're right; you shouldn't be treated that way.

But--and this is the important thing--mentally ret*d people shouldn't be treated like that, either. Nobody should be. Rather than trying to distance yourself from people who are treated badly because of their disability, a better choice is to join forces and fight for everybody's right to be treated like a fellow human being.

You get it now?

Also (in addition to what the two people before me have said, which is totally accurate) did the person actually have Down syndrome? I know a lot of people use Down syndrome as synonymous with intellectual disability (or synonymous with "intellectual disability + obviously odd appearance", despite the fact that there are literally hundreds of syndromes that cause intellectual disability and various unusual appearances, and there are people with Down syndrome without an intellectual disability), so that's why I'm asking. (I've even been called "Down syndrome" before by people who saw that I was autistic and saw that I have a lot of minor facial anomalies and just assumed that it must be Down syndrome even though I look nothing like someone with Down syndrome.)

Oh and my response if someone calls me "ret*d" or "mong" or the like is "Yeah and proud of it". If I insisted that I wasn't "ret*d" and therefore was "okay", that would be like saying that it would be okay to call someone that if they did have an intellectual disability. And I totally refuse to do that. I remember talking to a guy who had picked up a hitchhiker with CP, who talked about being in a sheltered workshop and stuff. And the guy asked him "Do you dislike being mistaken for ret*d people?" and he said "Glad I'm just ret*d and not a bigot like you." Totally the same idea I'm going for when I say "yeah and proud of it" or whatever.

yes, this person had down syndrome.

I've found that the people some tend to call ret*ds, tend on average to be more understanding and far more pleasant to be around than the people doing the calling. By understanding I also mean less intentionally idiotic and more capable of grasping concepts with some time, in addition to the 'more accepting of differences' meaning of the term understanding. Some of the dumbest people I've met have had average or higher intelligence they never bothered to use, who needs thinking when there's ret*ds to punch after all?

I agree, the word ret*d is no longer a valid way of identifying an intellectually challenged person. But many people still remember what it used to mean, so using it is generally frowned upon, unlike idiot and imbecile.

"ret*d" was never a valid way of identifying anyone -- "ret*d" was, but "ret*d" was always an insult.

Stupid political correctness... Retardation is only a word defining hindered development. So yeah, we autistics are ret*ds in some aspect, because we have a development disorder impairing our communication/social skills. It's not the same as mental retardation, but it is still a hindrance in development. Ergo, it's a retardation.

People give way too much power to words...

I don't see it as political correctness that people shouldn't be using that word, I see it as common sense. It's not the 1980s anymore. There are better words to use. Besides, people who use the words, ret*d and ret*d are being lazy and they're not using their brains to think of more intelligent words to use. I compare the use of those words to the use of some swear words.

I also hate PCness. I refuse to use learning disability or intellectual problems or cognitive disability or disorder for mental retardation. The closest I will come to for PCness in MR is saying mental retardation or low IQ for mentally ret*d people. I just don't like the change.

I guess I'm lazy but I hate PCness and people changing words in society because people can't stop getting offended. I used to hate being called ret*d only because I didn't like being called different but guess what? Even if they decided to call me autistic instead "You're autistic Beth" or "You're a autistic" "If you're not stupid, then you're autistic" I bet I would still hate being called it.

Well, you know, you calling the dude "ret*d" is just as offensive as your friend saying what he said. No offense. the both of you seem on the same level of superficiality.

"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a
delusional,illogical, liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an
unscrupulous mainstream media,which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
-2007 winning entry from an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term

If that's the case, then why complain when a guy confuses autism and mental retardation? He's just being honest and says what he thinks, right?

If you look at it that way, autism is a type of retardation. It's a "slowing" of certain aspects of development and cognition (namely social). Though I'm not trying to say that all disabled people could be called are autistic.

Body language may account for x% of communication, but verbal language is still a vital part of communication. Words are extremely powerful. Our native language classes focus heavily on studying text: clever uses of words and pictures to convey messages, rhetorics etc. In fact, the final exam is two-part with the other part being content analysis. The more you learn, the more you understand how much people can be manipulated through the use of words. Some claim that autistics are more resistant to this, but on the other hand, many tend to believe anything they're told, even when the message is in written form and can be carefully studied. But often the rules are so simple that most people are able to grasp them. Like you call a black person a n***** when you want to disrespect them.