Give Up the R Word This Month and Always
March 21, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Women's Health
As mothers, wives, daughters or sisters we have a lot of influence over the language of those close to us. It’s time for a language update. The Special Olympics urges us all to stop using the word “retard”. They’ve reserved March 31 as National Day of Awareness to encourage Americans to reflect on the hurt caused by the slur.
Sadly, many of us may have grown up hearing “retard” used by classmates as just a common adjective. And now it slips out in speech too often without a thought given as to how it may affect others.
It seems that even our very own President needs to reflect a bit as well. On The Tonight Show Thursday, Obama spoke of his poor bowling scores and said it was “like the Special Olympics or something.” Wow, huh? If someone as intelligent as the President has these kinds of thoughts finding their way to speech, we all probably have something to think about. Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Timothy Shriver and apologized immediately after the show’s taping.
Visit r-word.org to make your pledge to stop using the R word this month and always.
(Image/button via Special Olympics. Visit to get the code for your own button.)
My nephew has Down Syndrome and I have to admit, removing that word from my vocabulary has been hard. But now when I do say it, I feel a sting. When a word has been ingrained in your head and so freely used all your life, it is so hard to stop it from involuntarily being spewed! Continuing to work on it…. thanks for posting this!
Hi Kathleen,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Keep up the hard work : )