[WikiEN-l] Jeezis needs a name change

Fri Oct 10 00:03:35 UTC 2003

Sean Barrett wrote:

>"To retard" is a perfectly legitimate verb meaning "to hold back" or "to
>slow."  Assuming that it refers to a psycological condition is every bit
>as ridiculous as assuming that "niggardly" has something to do with skin
>color.

Certainly not every bit!
"niggardly" /never/ has anything to do with skin color.
"retard" really can refer to a psychological condititon --
especially when it's a noun (as usernames typically are).

Here are the varios meanings of "retard" as a noun (from the OED):
1: "Retardation, delay."
Example (1971): "The Government, somewhat in retard of the fact,
enacted the..eugenic protection law in 1949."
2: "retard of the tide"
3: "A device in a motor vehicle for retarding the ignition spark."
4: "U.S. slang. A mentally retarded person."

Which is most likely?  Certainly, we do not /know/,
just as we didn't /know/ that "TMC" didn't mean
a Godzilla-like 100-foot-tall, vibrating rooster.
Heck, he even said that it /did/ mean that!

Not that this is directly relevant to anything,
since as somebody (Ec?) mentioned before,
[[User:Retard]] has banned the name for us already,
by leaving some time ago, probably forever.

-- Toby