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It's an offensive word, but that's why we use it - it carries a lot of force. If an insult didn't offend anyone, it wouldn't be a very good insult. If we want to stop using retarded as an insult, we have to stop thinking that being retarded is a bad thing. Whether or not you say it is irrelevant. However retarded is only a recent entry in a very long list of words that used to have technical meanings but are now insults. Idiot, moron, cretin, dunce, imbecile, and spastic have all had specific definitions in the past.