“Mentally handicapped” also has this problem to a less extent. You could say someone who is insane is mentally handicapped even though their problem isn’t low intelligence and some mentally ill people have high IQs.

Older phrases like “mentally challenged” had the same defect only worse. You could say someone who is trying to solve a crossword puzzle and is having a hard time is being “mentally challenged” and youre technically correct.

Strangely “retarded” short for “mentally retarded” is the most literal, logic phrase to use to describe the ailment. The person is literally “retarded” mentally. “Retarded” means held back. Their mind’s growth is “held back” relative to others. The irony is “retarded” was a euphemism. Before “retarded” the words “moron”, “idiot”, and “imbecile” were used as actual technical, scientific words for people of below average intelligence, the word being used depending on the range you fell into. And now today “moron” isn’t even a formal word anymore, its turned into slang. I suppose it make sense that the same thing is happening to the word “retarded”. A few generations from now it won’t even cross people’s minds that “retarded” is anything but a slang term for “stupid”. Nobody will wonder if its offensive because people won’t associate the term with people who have low IQs.

Faggot is a word designed specifically as a derogatory term for people who are gay just like using the word gay in a derogatory term is intentionally taking a word that means something completely different and using it to insult someone. I don’t think I need to run through the same explanation with Nigger.

As for “retarded” it has a completely different meaning which has already been explained by other users. When somebody insults someone/something by referring to it as retarded they are using the original meaning of the word which refers to a level of intelligence and are not using it out of context. The argument you are employing is equivalent to the argument that “Stupid” should not be used as a derogatory term (as if it has any other use) because it is offensive to stupid people.

The only reason that the word “retard” is offensive is because people like you don’t make a distinction between “retard” as a medical label and “retard” as a statement of intelligence.

If I were you I would spend my time protesting the use of the word “retard” to describe your family members condition as opposed to other terms like “mentally challenged”. As you have already noted your child may be mentally challenged but they are by no means stupid so maybe you should be more angry at the people who have named your child’s/family member’s condition a word that means essentially the same thing as stupid.

In the past words such as Moron, Feeble-Minded, etc. were also used as clinical diagnostic terms. Those terms fell out of fashion, and modernly we are seeing our present diagnostic wording fall out of fashion.

Ultimately, if you choose to refer to someone as Retarded, I would hope that you would have the clinical training and sensitivity to understand what the word conveys diagnostically. Any other use of the term is not only incorrect, but it sheds light on how little the user of the word understands it.