[rsheridan6]

Why should "oriental" be offensive? It's derived from a word for "eastern." What fool came up with the idea that we should be offended by it, and start using the term "Asian," which could refer to anyone from Tel Aviv to Vladivostok?

Why should "Mexican" be offensive? It's refers to a nationality. Are you offended by "American" or "Japanese," and if not, why should you be offended by "Mexican?"

"Retard" was originally intended to be a clinical term referring derived from a word meaning "slow" or "delayed," which replaced previous terms such as idiot or imbecile. How much gentler can you get? If retard has become perjorative, it's because nobody wants to be what the word refers to, and there's not much you can do about that. If you successfully replace it with a nonsense word, say "quixmar," in ten years "quixmar" will be used as an insult in middle school, become offensive, and have to be replaced. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Cushman]

Calling someone Mexican is fine if you know they are Mexican. Calling someone Mexican because they're Chilean and that's your word for brown people is offensive precisely because it's a nationality-- you're saying that you don't know, or more likely don't care, that there is more than one country Hispanic people come from.

I can't find a good source on this, but I suspect you're wrong about "retard" being used clinically. The terms "mentally retarded", and "mental retardation", were and still are used in clinical settings to describe delayed development (though they're going out of fashion quickly). The use of "retard" (as a noun) is pejorative because of linguistics relating to the distinction between attribute and essence; the same reason "a group of black men" is fine, but "a group of blacks" is not.

[gaius]

Uhh, like Spain?

Mistaking a Chilean for a Mexican is no more offensive than mistaking a German for a Swiss (or a Spaniard for a Portuguese). If you think it is, then I strongly suspect you are actively looking for opportunities to be offended, for your own reasons.

[Cushman]

I mean, I'm not offended, because this never happens to me, because I'm white. But I'm given to understand that national pride is as important to Central and South Americans as it is to anyone, and this is something that matters to many expats, and it's not hard for me to understand why.

Try calling your average middle American a Russian (same difference, right?) and you might be in the ballpark.

[graeme]

I read up on "retard" due to this post. Retard was originally used to replace words such as cretin, imbecile, fool, etc.

Those were once clinical terms, but by the late 19th century they had become pejorative. So retardation was introduced, and worked for a while. Then it became a schoolyard insult, and was replaced by mentally disabled or mentally challenged.

If schoolchildren invent an insult out of "disabled", then I imagine a new term will be introduced. This doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea to replace "retarded", but it seems likely that there's no permanent solution.

[cameronh90]

They already have, sort of. I have heard "what, are you challenged?" or "you are special" a few times now... which is actually one step further than disabled down the euphemism treadmill.

[graeme]

Yeah, special was already an insult when I was in school in the 90s. Didn't realize challenged had become one already. Have they made a noun out of it or just an adjective? Retarded produced both, which is one probably helped it spread.

[mvaliente2001]

And that's one of the problems with PC. In that regards, it doesn't work. If we call "orange thinkers" those which IQ is around or above average and "green thinkers" to the other group, then sooner you'll hear "What? Are you a green thinker?"

[Cushman]

But I know for a fact that "retarded" and "retardation" have not been replaced; they're being phased out for political reasons, but the terms still have a specific meaning and are definitely still in use clinically.

What I doubt (lacking real evidence) is that the person-noun form "retard" -- think about phrases like "discharging a retard", "managing retard behavior", "a unit full of retards" -- was ever in widespread clinical use, as "idiot" or "imbecile" were in the past. The move to stop using those terms was not about just changing the word, but also recognizing mental disorders as something distinct from a person's inherent nature.

(Again, similar to the move from "negroes" to "black people". Either can be used pejoratively, but the former is arguably intrinsically offensive.)

[newnewnew]

White progressives are fond of making up new rules to distinguish the faithful from the ultra-faithful.

[rsheridan6]

I think you've hit the nail on the head. The people who know all the new terminology get to feel superior to the ones who don't keep up.

[michaelfeathers]

I know someone has to have written about this, but I don't know who. My sense is that it is like an unconscious societal arms race. In the presence of prejudice labels take on negative connotations. People notice and use new terms that are free of these connotations. Then the new terms acquire the connotations and the cycle repeats.

Maybe this is the best we can hope for, that we get lulls in the coloration of terms and less prejudice to confront at each new cycle.

[gms7777]

With regards to "Mexican", I think he meant referring to anyone of hispanic/latino descent as "Mexican". Its offensive in the same way as referring to any Asian nationality as "Chinese".