In closing two close friends of mine were just able to get married here in Washington after being a couple longer than my wife and have known each other let alone been married.  As staff we've decided that there are attitudes and words we do not want to be reinforced and used on this site.

This is not up for debate however we do thank you for you opinions and how polite everyone has been.

I'm going to close this thread now before the politeness wears thin.

AMEN zomvor. there is a big difference between saying a gameboy unce track is 'gay'.....than calling someone outright 'you're totally gay / a fag'. Just my opinion. I think people are seriously being pedantic if they get offended if you call a super cheesey track 'a bit gay'.  Ive made that comment of course millions of time,  i wont in future on here, but what i mean is that i would never say to someone 'this song sucks you fucking faggot'.

hey, guess what? both could make someone feel uncomfortable
im going to call super cheesy, completely clueless and/or horribly stuck in the past tracks "totally downstate" from now on

I meant professionals who work in the field of caring for the developmentally disabled. Just for clarification.

Thanks for clarifying, I wasn't sure.

yeah i don't think "gay"/"retarded" as synonyms for "bad" and "faggot"/"bitch" as synonyms for "weakling" are acts of positive reappropriation or a "fuck you" to the establishment by the gay/female/ID communities somehow

i doubt there is going to be a really heavy handed application of this, it is probably just to stop everyone calling each other faggots all the time.

Ah, I hope I didn't accidentally suggest that I was going for a side-by-side comparison there. I was merely responding to those who'd argue "I have gay friends who think it's okay so what the fuck?" I meant to agree that it sometimes happens that discriminated groups try to accept and negate the negative words directed at them in such a manner. That doesn't justify keeping them (the words) around, so I think we agree.

Man, I think we all could keep going in circles about this stuff forever, but I for one like having this type of convo (explains sudden break from lurking).

boaconstructor wrote:

we are not professionals

I meant professionals who work in the field of caring for the developmentally disabled. Just for clarification.

we are not professionals

Do professionals still refer to mentally handicapped/developmentally challenge as being "R-worded" anymore?

unfortunately yes. theres been huge strides in care for the disabled but not all states and companies have caught up. the word does still get used ( a lot here in texas) by some companies that assist disabled. but other companies ive worked for would fire you if they heard it.

as far as using the word its a little more complex than racist  slurs because it does have an original non offensive usage, and only became offensive through context.

in your example your using the word as a verb which takes away most of the sting and i can say i wouldnt find it offensive, but for the most part theres no instances where it couldnt be replaced with something else.

I use that word when referring to a section of a song in which the musical device "Rit.(Ritardando)" is employed. Is that offensive/insensitive? e.g. "The ending of that song shouldn't be r-worded guys. It loses energy that way."

Edit: whoops... sorry. Didn't mean to bump a 2 hour old thread...

Lazerbeat wrote:

Yes it is considered insensitive by the moderation team.

Political correction sucks. Ill acept it, but it sucks.

Lo que yo hago es gritar las porquerias en otra lengua.

I think it's worth noting that "lame" is also discriminatory language, as well as the R-word, which I see thrown around a lot and it always makes me cringe.

http://www.r-word.org/

i think its cool someone mentioned this. i work with people that have developmental disabilities and have done so for years. its always weird to hear people use the r word and mostly a losing battle to try to convince them why they shouldnt. though i have heard some people i take care of call each other the r word as an endearment/joke type thing and i think its rad as fuck.