>>50257915It's not technically.
The word originally means; "to hinder progress or slow things down"
So example:
>You're walking in a field and it starts raining.>The ground gets marshy and you start struggling to walkYour progress is being retarded or has been retarded by the rain
>You're driving in a 60 road>The person in front is driving at 50They are a retard, your progress is being retarded by them
Water pressure alarm systems use something called a retard chamber on them that stopped the water flow when it reached a certain level.
The problem is that somewhen, the term was applied to people with mental handicaps as if "they are holding back human progression or the gene pool" and everyone kind of agrees that's bad to say.
Even to the point people with mental handicaps were officially being called retarded.
That stopped and the proper way to refer to them is "mentally handicapped people".
But it kind of stuck as a general insult to call someone stupid or idiotic to compare them to a mentally handicapped person by calling them retarded.
So unfortunately we cannot use the insult in its proper context because people were misusing it officiallly for years to the point that the intended meaning is always the wrong one.
