Good article! Before I make my main point, let me just say that as a gay man I don’t think the use of “that’s so gay” as a generic negative has actually died out. I hear it all the time, and I often hear young people defending it, saying they don’t mean it offensively and that it’s not homophobic.(Uh, sorry, y’all. It’s offensive.)

Anyhooo … I quite agree that retarded should not be used as an insult or pejorative. Several years ago when I was just getting sensitized to that, I slipped up and used it once with a British friend of mine.

Oh my god! He was so horrified!

It seems that retarded is highly socially unacceptable in the UK, with a negative emotional quotient right up there with our worst profanities. It’s interesting how close our dialects can be, but how they can differ very significantly in small particulars.

Of course in this case, the Brits are I ahead of us doing something I think is great.

On the other hand, I learned recently that c**nt, which to me is an absolutely unacceptable word with a volcanic negative emotional quotient, is considered to be just a mild expletive in the UK. You’ll even see it quoted in newspapers, uttered by respectable politicians.

So maybe we and the Brits can swap. We’ll totally stop using the R word if they’ll totally stop using the C word.

And would everybody (on both sides of the pond) kindly stop saying “that’s so gay?”