I think there was a railroad gizmo called a retarder, too, at one time. Maybe I’ll try to look it up.

I think of my cat. He’s a slow thinker, for a cat, but a very deep one. Given time, he can figure things out which are important to him.

In the meantime, he has quick reflexes

It is in part explicable by the fact that Asperger’s Syndrome is an eponymous construction with a possessive.

So if I took Sally Marbles off her, I would have Sally’s Marbles

“Tard Cart” is an expression, even in humour I find offensive because it is essentially stigmatising an aid or adaptation. It would be like calling my laptop a “tard ‘puter” because I was provided it as an adaptation to dyslexia.

Well, with quartz movements and computer controlled fuel injection, it would be a bit difficult.

I don’t think anyone is arguing against such usage of a word in a totally different context.

And yes, England and the U.S. are two countries separated by the same language.

Joe

So many terms have fell into bad usage, that we have to at least rescue Autistic while we still can.

Thing is today’s euphemism inevitably becomes tomorrow’s pejorative, and then in time moves on to incomprehensibility when it becomes an archaism.

Even more difficult is the realisation that the same word, or it’s close cognates and etymological antecedents in other cultures simply does not have the same semiotic significance.

There is a lot of exchange between the US and the UK since we both speak variants of the same language, and via the hegemony of US dominance of popular culture, the R word becomes an insult in this country.

However it is not often realised that there are very considerable cultural difference between the two English speaking communities, every bit as large as those between English and French speakers. The surface similarity blinds us all to that, whereas we more readily recognise the difference between a culture who does not share the same basic orthography.

But on that theme there might be something more at the heart of the issue,
“Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend”
Samuel Johnson

I mean, he was a pretty sharp guy, with a Nobel Prize, and all, so shouldn’t we take his word that he was retarded?

One great thing (just one of course) about naming Charlie “Charles” is the endless list of nicknames possible.

Charlie, Cholly, Chuck, Chuckster, Chuckie (I don’t like this). Chucky Boy, Cholly Boy, Carolus (Latin version), Chas, Cha Cha……..