Imagine this scenario: a child, no older than the age of seven, is walking down the halls of his/her elementary school. They may not look or act like the “normal” peers. Their face looks different, or their mind just doesn’t work quite right, or a part of their body doesn’t function in the same way as others may. The poor child didn’t choose to be born this way; yet people don’t seem to understand. While walking down the hallway, the word “retarded” is thrown around, so much that now it seems to be the only word that the poor child can hear. Coming back to reality, take a look at your own life; have you ever called someone ‘retarded’, even though they may not have been handicapped? Yes, we all have, and not appropriately. Since absolutely no one uses this word in the correct manner anymore, it should be banned from the English language.

The word ‘retarded’ simply means the brain processes information in a slower manner than the “normal” person. Retarded first came about as to diagnose someone with “mental retardation”, which later morphed into a way to insult a person. Although, some may find this word playful or funny, to those who have a mental retardation, it is taken heavily. If this word should remain in the English language, there should be a way to censor people from using it in an inappropriately. Since there is absolutely no way to be able to keep this from happening, this word should be banned all together.

There are other “playful” ways of insulting someone, without hurting a handicapped person in the process. Maybe next time people think of using that word, they will choose differently because they finally realize that using that horrifying word hurts not only the person that they are insulting, but to others that are around them that they may not even realize. ‘Retarded’ needs to be banished from our language, it is not worth the hurt anymore.