When Sarah Palin takes offense at Rahm Emanuel’s use of the adjective “retarded,” one is tempted to retort, but the discussion which would follow the retort would be, well, too retarded to bear. The word “retarded” itself is etymologically somewhat retarded, but the word is a jewel of clarity next to the positively gay adjective “developmentally challenged,” or whatever the latest euphemism is supposed to be.
For my part, I think that I will henceforth insist on reviving the adjective “imbecilic,” a word which an earlier generation of easily offended parents of imbeciles apparently shamed out of use, that generation replacing it with the then supposedly inoffensive “retarded.” At least “imbecilic,” unlike “retarded,” is directly, properly and unambiguously derived from its Latin root. (Regarding “developmentally challenged,” one wonders whether the philological vandals pushing the word had so much as heard of Latin.)
The trouble with the word “retarded” resembles the trouble with the word “gay” (as in homosexual) and, unfortunately, also resembles the trouble with the word “black” (as in Negro). The trouble lies not in the word but in the characteristics or behavior of the thing to which the word refers. Were it not so, each generation of semiëducated scolds would not be pushing on us yet another retarded euphemism for the thing. One hesitates to introduce examples regarding variously humorous or private parts of the human body, but such examples would if introduced illustrate the same linguistic principle and are not hard to call to mind.
To anyone who thinks it possible to introduce a safe word to identify imbeciles, a word which would not soon become universal grist for schoolyard taunts: good luck. The English language is still going to need some suitable word to refer to imbeciles, even so. Rotating the existing word out for a new euphemism once per generation really does not help.
* * *
The quiet respect one naturally feels for a neighbor who, with dignity, bears an unfair burden or an unearned infirmity evaporates when he abandons his dignity, when he starts whining that you and I weren’t showing servile enough a deference to his problems. Some folks will never understand this.
* * *
Like other conservative U.S. traditionalists, I feel strongly inclined at first encounter to like Sarah Palin. She seems at first blush somehow to exemplify the American frontier spirit. However, could the authentic American frontiersman, at his best, not exhibit ruggedness or polish alternately, as the occasion demanded? Think of the fictional Benjamin Cartwright; or recall the redheaded men of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, quoting and singing their Tacitus. Or, if fictional characters don’t suit, how about Abraham Lincoln?
Regrettably, one finds it hard to suppose that Mrs. Palin knew who Tacitus was. It does not seem safe to suppose that she knew much even about Lincoln.
Have you noticed incidentally that, in her heat to slam Mr. Emanuel for his locker-room vernacular, Mrs. Palin practically passes over his blankin’ adverb? Oy!
Mrs. Palin is a hugely entertaining national figure, and I am glad that she’s out there, so to speak; but here is yet more reluctant evidence against nominating the woman to the U.S. presidency—especially in a cycle in which the chief Republican alternatives to her are relatively so strong.
HJH