I don't think it's auto-censorship as much as language changing. For me, 'retard' is 99% associated with my friends dissing each other as kids, and 1% associated with 'delay'.
For me, it's mostly associated with being bullied as an autistic child, which might be the actual reason it's come to be seen as a "slur"
Meh. Probably more likely is those damn automod settings on reddit (which aren't, you know, configured by moderators according to what their community wants or anything)
Every "scientific" name for mental disability eventually becomes a slur or name. Idiot and moron were considered proper terms at one point in time. "Retard" was never proper but is easily derived from "mental retardation", which was. In the 80s/90s there was a push to use "special" as a euphemism and it was immediately picked up as a slur, I think both usages have been long-since abandoned as a result.
Autistic is also being used this way but its long-term fate is not so clear to me.
In general euphemisms cannot keep up with bigotry, I rather consider it a lost cause.
> In general euphemisms cannot keep up with bigotry, I rather consider it a lost cause.
I don't. It doesn't seem to be that difficult to be aware of these things, and if I can save others from feeling the twinge of pain from being reminded of their childhood, or other abusive memories, simply by not using a few words... why wouldn't I?
