Pretty much.Retard has lost some of it's sharpness from being used all the time, so people wanting to mix things up tend to use Autist/Ottist/Autistic as an insult.
tbh it's not even a real insult.I mean seriously, some of the smartest people in the world have autism.Retardation though? Not so much.Seems like a step backwards if you're trying to be offensive.
Insults tend to do that. Picture slightly relevant.
Insults don't usually derive their full meaning from the real life equivalent, generic swearwords might but language evolves and the meaning gets warped.To use a few examplesWhoreson - Self evident, fell out of use a long time ago.Bitch - Female Dog, now means an unpleasant woman.Bastard - Child without married parents (male), a big deal in the olden days but now not many people give a shit. It's just a generic 'you bastard' now, nobody actually implies that your parents are unmarried when using it.Bugger - Sodomy, a typical homophobic insult but I doubt many people who use the term actually understand the connotation of saying 'bugger me' or they do but it's not the real reason for saying it.Then you get more direct things likeFuck - Everyone knows this one, it's such a versatile swearword but it has so many clever uses now.Shit - FaecesArse - Your bam.Twat - A bad driver or lady parts. When used as an insult rather than a descriptive rude term, it doesn't mean 'oh you vagina' it means 'oh you twat'Then you get into bastardised words.Gay - Meant happy, then it got used to describe homosexuals. I don't know why <.< Then it got reclaimed - lgbt etcRetard - It means you are acting stupidly when you have no good reason to do so. I don't know a lot about louis c k but he has a great video/standup thing on it. It's on youtube somewhere <.<Faggot - Somehow got associated with gay people, now it's a generic insult. Same vein as retard.Autistic - Same as the above.My hand hurts but I hope this gets the point across.
No the point is clear enough.My conclusion? The way people use language is stupid.Words like "autistic" and "faggot" are just the big buzz words right now I guess.
People weren't used to hearing the "autistic" as an insult.Someone called you a retard, it's like "Oh yeah, common insult."But they call you autistic and you're left thinking "Wait, they just called me autistic.. what the fuck.." It's like saying "adios" instead of goodbye, it stays in your head longer and thus has more of an effect.
That's how buzz words work.
no sense getting pissy about it.
Only pissy people I see here are you and Commando
What's concerning about this is how are you meant to tell whether somebody is trying to use it as in "Oh, he;s had autism since birth." or "OMG YOU'RE SO AUTISTIC STOP SPAMMING ABOUT MLP"
Pretty easy to tell the difference between those two...
It's not really about telling the difference between the ways it's used, the question is more along the lines of why is it used in such a way when there are better insults?
Umm.. I was replying to Weed Commando's comment..
Does Kinder have autism or just down-syndrome?
Why has "autistic" become the new "retard"?
