Earlier quoted context omitted.
Words have meaning. Words have power. This much is not in debate, as far as I'm concerned (so far). Where I have to take pause is taking one usage (however derogatory) of a word and applying to every meaning and usage regardless of what the context actually is as some manifestation of virtue signalling. At this point we may as well throw out language, diction and rhetoric entirely as any word and phrase can be twiste…
By quoting Seinfeld you are showing that you are living in the past. You are also trivialising the real suffering and daily struggles of mentally handicapped people by comparing it to the "struggle" of bald people. Once again "bitch" is an offensive word.
FINE. Turnabout is fair play. I think you understood precisely the point I was attempting to make specifically by phrasing it the way I did. If your analysis of communication is to unpack and divine words back to one specific meaning but not others, how do you communicate[1]? How do you know which meaning to take issue with (that's a genuine question if you care to bother) and which ones are okay? Is it just words that at some point in history been taken and used abusively? Or are they words with novelty that only now are problematic because some group has taken it upon themselves to designate them as such? How do they do so? What do they use to decide this and how can the rest of us buy tickets to ride this clue(less)train?
You are also trivialising the real suffering and daily struggles of mentally handicapped people by comparing it to the "struggle" of bald people
By insisting that we pay a bit more respect to the precedent that language is fluid, mutable and variable and questioning the behavior of linking fringe pejorative with social vernacular (or spoken like a layperson: "What, because I said words have more than one meaning and using a word by its dictionary definition in the fully correct and appropriate context does not mean I am de facto calling someone with mental disability "retarded"?)
No. Not at all. But something familiar about the accusation you've just lobbed at me, plus that utterly worthless comment about "living in the past", indicates to me I'm not going to get very far with this. So I'm gonna just go ahead and bow out right now.
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