Blahaj.zone admin here. Let me make this simple and clear. I don’t care what specific word you use, if you are using intellectual disability or neurodivergence as an insult, you’re going to get moderated.
Genuinely curious if this applies to moron and idiot, since they have basically the same origin story.
How am I supposed to just stop using this word?? How else is the plane supposed to tell me to put thrust at idle during landing? This is ridiculous.
no hate to you but i do hate that this is one of the default responses the internet has chosen when discussing this language (twice now in this thread)
i guess it’s like a growing pains thing, but it strikes me as very middle schooler, kind of like bringing up that one word that means unwilling to share with others.
one is a noun/adjective, the other is a verb. entirely different words that simply have the same Latin root. one is used in a professional context in an industry nearly none of us are familiar with, the other i come across as a derogatory on this site pretty much hourly. please let’s grow up a bit about this.
(again no hate to you specifically commenter, it was a funny joke and i just want to call out the broader trend)
This is a real convo I had with middle schoolers when I did a stint as a teacher.
“But teacher why I can’t I say SHITAKE? it’s a mushroom. And James is acting like a little SHITAKE head.”
To be fair to Airbus,
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They probably chose the language for that call-out way before 2009. Airplanes can live for thirty years, and type designs can keep going several decades longer
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The designers were also likely to be French, but they selected English call-outs. This seems to me like a case where they picked a word that’s technically in the OED l, but is actually much more common in French.
I mean, if it’s a valid word for what they want to say, then I don’t really see a problem. It’s pronounced the same, but it’s a completely different word.
Same with a pork meatball or cigarette in the UK.
I wish 2009 would call me back 😞
It’s just lazy. If you want to hurt someone’s feelings you need to do the work.
I think it’s fine in its original contexts (i.e. “retardant”, or to “retard” something), but could maybe be avoided in 80% of cases.
It is inexcusable to apply it to people though.