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Comment by senthil_rajasek | Hacker News Reader

"Phase shift varies with frequency and can advance or retard as the frequency changes"

I looked up Webster's American English Thesaurus and the antonym for 'advance' in the sense that it's used in your sentence is recede. Here is the same sentence rewritten using recede.

"Phase shift varies with frequency and can advance or recede as the frequency changes."

This is an easy case where you could have used correct language.

If you would like to know why it's offensive to some people, I could educate you.

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"retard" is also a correct word to use here; it means "to delay".

> If you would like to know why it's offensive to some people, I could educate you.

Could you educate us as to why it's offensive in this context? I think we all know why calling a mentally handicapped person "retarded" offends some people, but no one did so.

> "retard" is also a correct word to use here; it means "to delay".

I think its wrong; my experience of its usage suggests that is, at least, odd to use it intransitively, and, in any case, the use here might be compatible with "to be delayed", but not with "to delay" (that is, "advance or be retarded" would work, but be less-than-desirable for lack of parallelism of structure; "advance or recede", to the extent that it communicates the correct meaning, is preferable.)

All this is aside from any concerns of "retard" being used offensively in other contexts, which I think is irrelevant to the problem here.

In epic (literary genre) you use 'retardation' in a form of long, detailed description to slow the action.

Since you asked,

Words are powerful and stir up emotions.

In this context, someone stigmatized as "slow" or "dumb" by society, reading a sentence with the word "retard" in it has to deal with bad memories from the past rather than understanding the concepts in this sentence. Clearly, an alternative word choice exists. That's one reason why it's offensive.

> Words are powerful and stir up emotions.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Yes, words do stir up emotions, but well-adjusted adults learn as children to control and channel their emotions in healthy, constructive ways, rather than permitting themselves to be debilitated by seeing a perfectly correct word used perfectly correctly — and inoffensively.

> In this context, someone stigmatized as "slow" or "dumb" by society, reading a sentence with the word "retard" in it has to deal with bad memories from the past rather than understanding the concepts in this sentence.

Someone so emotionally fragile would be offended even by reading your sentence about the original sentence!

Yes, society can also help by being kind to one another.

But do you not understand that while writing a sentence, it is not the job of the writer to tip toe around the reader's possible negative life experience? It would be near impossible to write about anything if that were the case.

Example: In your post you used the phrase "bad memories." I have bad memories of something that happened a week ago. Thus, your post is offensive (by your reasoning).

Ultimately if you're speaking appropriately (as in, not using slang), it is the job of the reader to perceive context correctly.

A good writer has the responsibility of choosing the correct word. That's what makes them good.

I apologize if my use of some words offended you. My reasoning is that words that trigger specific memories and experiences in a person are more hurtful.

The world is not a perfect place but it is constantly changing and evolving. I keep working hard to use words that are not hurtful.

Sure.

But a good writer does not mean an inoffensive one. If pressed, I would even argue that the opposite is that case.

You are so off the mark that you must be trolling or "receded".

Being offensive is certainly a choice but not on this forum if I remember the rules correctly.

I am not trolling, I am merely saying that a good writer should take responsibility for his choice of words.

They did, by keeping the word and bailing on the host.

You're going to fucking hate what the English call canola oil.

My points are in the American context and not meant for the old world.

It's a completely different word, though.

"retard" (pronounced "RE-tard") is the derogatory term, but the context used in this sentence (to slow something down) is pronounced "re-TARD". The only people who would be offended by that are those who have never been introduced to the other word with the same spelling (but different sound).

Indeed, the _primary_ listed meaning for this word [0] is the verb form, not the derogatory meaning.

    [ri-tahrd, for 1–3, 5; ree-tahrd for 4]

0: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/retard

recede is less ambiguous.

Recede? Recede and retard are not synonyms by any stretch of the imagination. I'm going to assume you are not a native English speaker so I am going to include some definitions for your edification:

recede - to go or move away; retreat; go to or toward a more distant point; withdraw. retard - to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede.

Imagine you are standing on a beach by a bay. As the tide goes out the water is receding. If you build a wall across the mouth of the bay, so that the high tide waters cannot leave the bay, then you are retarding the waters.

Recede doesn't mean the same thing. If something advances, then it receding means it moves in the opposite direction. If the advancement is retarded it still advances but more slowly.

That's a good point, but "advance slowly" does not capture moving in the opposite direction.

Is it? What else could retard mean in this context?

That's offensive to people with receding hairlines.

Turnabout's a bitch, ain't it?

In popular American usage recede is not associated with hairline. People with receding hairline are not marginalized by society.

Now "bitch" that's offensive.

Edit: spell correct.

Words have meaning. Words have power. This much is not in debate, as far as I'm concerned (so far). Where I have to take pause is taking one usage (however derogatory) of a word and applying to every meaning and usage regardless of what the context actually is as some manifestation of virtue signalling. At this point we may as well throw out language, diction and rhetoric entirely as any word and phrase can be twisted to be offensive even when a word is used entirely and wholly in accurate and proper context.

People with receding hairline are not marginalized by society

You're obviously not aware with how common male baldness jokes are in sitcoms and entertainment, are you? I encourage you watch a few episodes of Seinfeld to see how much influence hair and baldness has on men and their self esteem in the dating world.

They might not be marginalized, but then again I guess it depends on how one is using the word 'marginalized' to begin with, which brings us back to square one: turnabout is a bitch.

By quoting Seinfeld you are showing that you are living in the past.

You are also trivialising the real suffering and daily struggles of mentally handicapped people by comparing it to the "struggle" of bald people.

Once again "bitch" is an offensive word.

Once again "bitch" is an offensive word.

FINE. Turnabout is fair play. I think you understood precisely the point I was attempting to make specifically by phrasing it the way I did. If your analysis of communication is to unpack and divine words back to one specific meaning but not others, how do you communicate[1]? How do you know which meaning to take issue with (that's a genuine question if you care to bother) and which ones are okay? Is it just words that at some point in history been taken and used abusively? Or are they words with novelty that only now are problematic because some group has taken it upon themselves to designate them as such? How do they do so? What do they use to decide this and how can the rest of us buy tickets to ride this clue(less)train?

You are also trivialising the real suffering and daily struggles of mentally handicapped people by comparing it to the "struggle" of bald people

By insisting that we pay a bit more respect to the precedent that language is fluid, mutable and variable and questioning the behavior of linking fringe pejorative with social vernacular (or spoken like a layperson: "What, because I said words have more than one meaning and using a word by its dictionary definition in the fully correct and appropriate context does not mean I am de facto calling someone with mental disability "retarded"?)

No. Not at all. But something familiar about the accusation you've just lobbed at me, plus that utterly worthless comment about "living in the past", indicates to me I'm not going to get very far with this. So I'm gonna just go ahead and bow out right now.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah-QbFaY_wU

"how you communicate[1]?"

My short answer is by listening.

I will write a longer post if time permits about what I have learned.

You've never heard the term receding hairline? I would think that hairline would be the first thing Americans would think of when hearing the word recede. I must ask, where did you learn English?

I learned English and how not to be rude in America.

But you're still digging in heels and refusing to entertain the notion of 'context clues' with respect to how words are used beyond carte blanche association of words and their meanings to the marginalization of social groups? I don't understand this.

Not being offended is not a right.

> If you would like to know why it's offensive to some people, I could educate you.

In this context? I'll agree that recede might be a better choice in this case, but as an undergrad in physics I hear the word retard being used in similar contexts all the time in the sense of slowing down. It crops up especially often in classical mechanics problems.

> If you would like to know why it's offensive to some people, I could educate you.

Please do.

https://i.imgur.com/jElyDnl.jpg

Why should anyone censor themselves? Hiding from things that offend you is not a good way to live your life. Why should I care if some people don't like the word "retard" or "damn" or any other curse word? If you are saying it at someone in a mean way than yeah, I could see that not being OK, but censoring yourself in everyday conversation on the off chance that somebody might get offended it a terrible thing to do.

'Retard' is the correct terminology in signal processing and has been since the 19th century. You are getting downvoted because you sound as ignorant as the politician who objected to funding research in Lie Theory.

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