I RETARD!!!!

[clap...  clap...]  Brilliant.  You must be very pleased with yourself, I'm sure. 

But what the heck; I'll set aside your preference for out-dated psychological terms over the long-standing usage of the word in actual parlance (predating psychology altogether), play along and give you the point.  It bolsters the crux of my argument anyway, which is that everyone is better served when people actually think about the traits they are trying to criticize long enough to be able to name them. 

In other words, "I don't know who Michael Scott is, but his ideas on the utility of the word 'retard' seem pretty thoughtless to me."  Fair enough.

So you think Down's Syndrome and retard are synonymous according to long standing usage in actual parlance?  Methinks your criticism of Michael Scott is a little hypocritical there.

 Political Correctness reared its ugly head (I mean no offense to ugly headed people there) in the form of Deepgreene complaining, rather strangely, that the use of the word retard is offensive to people suffering from Down's Syndrome.

Well, Michael Scott clearly thinks they are synonymous - otherwise there's no cause to worry about 'bad taste,' as the quotation put it. 

 Yes, but i think we know what BrandonHSQ meant (i do not think that he was actually trying to insult people with down syndrome!).

I generally play the Panov-Botvinnik attack as white when facing the Caro-Kann defense.

Your thoughts?

the office is the greatest show ever.

Once again kids are brought into an argument and here it's rather insulting =/.  I mean seriously, let's not try and be stereotypical here.

 Yes, but noone seems to know who he is, and the opinion of a nonentity wasn't introduced until after you had suggested the terms were synonyms.

I'm starting to lose the thread of your argument here...  But suffice it to say that I would take Mr. Scott (and the user who quoted him) as supporting my belief that yes, "retard" signifies people with mental handicaps (like Down's Syndrome) far more specifically than does "idiot."

However, I don't know why we should dwell on this, since I've already capitulated that there are more constructive modes of criticism than calling someone an idiot as well.  Ultimately, it's more about respect than political correctness, right?

I'll give the caro-kann a go against ya, hit me up with a challenge ozzie

 You've missed my point entirely, which was that your initial claim that calling someone a retard might be offensive to people with down's syndrome, is retarded.  That's not respect, it's pointless political correctness taken to a tedious degree, as demonstrated by my criticism of your use of the word idiot which you capitulated on in the face of your own tortured logic.

My goodness cheater... not only did you come back, totally unwanted... but you just got burned by Erik... and yet you're still here.

It's a classless thing to hang around at a party you've been asked to leave :).

... and in this case, you've been asked to leave a few times... and still you hang around.

Just because retard may refer to those with Down Syndrome, the word "retard" may have multiple definitions, just like other words do.

So just because you call someone a retard because they may be acting stupid does not necessarily mean that they're referring to those with Down Syndrome and stupidity at the same time.

Thanks for the offer. I apologize, but my post was not a seek. I'm looking to reduce my game load. To zero. I kind of am interested to see how long the tournaments take to finish.

Except for the elimination one, which I think will just take well into 2011. At least it has tons of downtime between rounds.

My logic is fine, and your point is a pant-load.  I'm done arguing with you here.  (For one thing, I'm getting tired of seeing "I RETARD!!!! by DeepGreene" in the "Most Recent Posts" area...)

I'm more than happy to let your thesis that mentally handicapped people shouldn't be offended by the use of the word 'retard' stand here on its own merits.

A disingenuous statement of the case you cannot defend.  Are you genuinely unable to see a difference between calling a mentally handicapped person a retard, and using the word retard in its colloquial sense to describe someone who is not in fact mentally retarded?  I suspect you can't, because that is the essence of political correctness which you appear to suffer from to a severe degree - being offended on behalf of someone else on the offchance that they might be.

A genuine retard in the medical sense not only shouldn't be offended by calling cheater_1 a retard (requiring them to think "I'm a retard, so it's offensive to call others retards"), but also wouldn't be, being too retarded to grasp the abstract concept of vicarious offense.