Please stop.
Please stop using the word "doomtard". It is not funny and it is offensive
Please stop.
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I concur
All knowledge comes from experience- John Locke
I agree with you Omohamai. 100%. That word is not funny, and it is offensive. People as intelligent and otherwise professional as the ones who made this site shouldn't have to talk that way to make their point.
Thanks for having the courage to say this.
But what word would you propose that we would use to describe these people?
We need one word to describe these type of people and this word must make it very clear even for kids to understand?
The people coming here are scared and emotional.
We need to transmit to these scared people that these type of doom people are completely wrong in every single claim and in most cases completely stupid.
We need one word that can catch on quickly.
What word would that be?
Fools is so general.
It is also not a strong word.
Because a portmanteau of 'doom' and 'retard' (used only in the derogatory sense, I note) is soooo much more… what… 'effective' a word to teach kids?
Surely this point doesn't need spelling out to you Obae.
Whichever of the following might be accurate descriptions of the particular person being discussed: frauds, criminals, incompetents, liars, lunatics, darlings of an unethical money grubbing media that apparently doesn't give a whoop for the kids. All are pretty strong, and so need to be used only when accurate.
You misunderstand. I think what they did is evil. It's the word tard I take offence to.
I don't really describe them..I don't care about them..and they will her what his coming to them. I just think using the word tard is offensive.
I don't really describe them..I don't care about them..and they will her what his coming to them.
Just sit back, say nothing and pray that god will get them?
Is that the solution?
Well, they.re tards. What would you have us.call them? Lol
No they aren't. A close friend of mine is developmentally disabled, and she not only thought the prediction of doomsday was stupid, she was very concerned about the harm that would happen to the people who believed in it. So, if an actual retarded person wasn't falling for it, but some persons with advanced degrees were (and worse yet, were profiting from it), how exactly does any of this have anything to do with mental retardation?
"Retard" is a slur, similar to the "n-word". It's hate speech, aimed at certain classes of disabled persons. It shouldn't be used.
I agree. The correct word to be used is 'doomtard', which is derivated from 'retard', but has nothing to do with retard. I would define doomtard as somebody who sounds retarded when speaks about the apocalypse. :-)
Why insist on a one-size-fits-all term? Especially one that indicates they're unintelligent? Most of the doomsday promoters weren't. I can see that people worked hard for years to make this a credible site. Why tarnish that rep now by defending childish name calling?
Because they are nothing but scums of the earth and they deserve all the hell they are going to get. If not for them, the people that committed suicide over this doomsday would still be here today.
^^ 1000000000000% agreed!!…
5am in the uk.. i'm alive.. just about.. spent most of the night reading from my kindle xD
This was never about defending their disgusting actions. It was only to ask you to stop using that word. I've spent months trying to calm peoples fears and directing them to this website. I think using that word hinders progress that has been made.
The fact they are so scientific illiterate and they fantasize so much about doomsday, that word describes them perfectly.
Why should anyone stop describing them as they are and engage in political correctness? Not me.
I am really not here to argue. I've sent a friend who has a mentally disabled child to this website and hoped to spare him somr uncomfortably while trying to find facts to calm his own fears. Maybe I shouldn't have told him to come here at all.
You will find people who are offended by almost any word you choose to use. I used to teach special education. When people began to be offended by the term mental retardation we began to use mentally challenged. Now people are beginning to be offended by the word term mentally challenged.
What you may wish to ask yourself is does the term mental reatardation or mentally challenged describe the people who perpetuate these hoaxes? By definition, they do. Just as foolish, dumbass, and idiot does as well. At one point we referred to people who were mentally challenged as idiots. Now we use idiot to refer to people like the doomsdayers and such. Should the mentally challenged be offended by the use of idiot?
Personally, I do not use the term retard or retarded when tying to point out the foolishness of a person. While I know that nobody was using the term doomtard as a way to do harm to a person who happend to suffer from mental retardation, I can see how a person who does have MR may be hurt by the usage.
I put out the different perspectives so that people can see it from differing viewpoints.
One thing I believe we all can agree on is that the doomsdayers are some of the most asinine people in the world. They are full of nonsense. And they are like cockroaches in that no matter how hard you try, they just don't go away.
@ Johnny Football. Excellent Post. How about the word Doomroaches, although it is disrespectful to cockroaches.
However we use the term Special Needs or Enabled to describe a person who is either mentally or physically challenged. We also tend to use their correct diagnose. Autistic, Downs Syndrome, Blind or Deaf. Here (Where I live) the word retard has been used to describe when someone does something idiotic. However I did look into this a little further and according to Wiki it is regarded as a offensive term.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disability-related_terms_with_negative_connotations
Thank you Carol. This is a difficult subject. I tend to lean towards not liking political correctness. Kind of how I was not too happy with the Chinese arresting all those people recently. I am big on freedom of speech, no matter how crazy. That being said, I also understand that some people could be hurt by certain things. The post below by Jade makes a good point. While some students were sensitive to labels, many were not overly sensitive. It is just like everything else in life where you have so many different viewpoints.
The biggest thing I can say is that if you know somebody is hurt by such a term, it is not difficult to come up with something else. I stress hurt over offended because offended can mean a bunch of people who have little or nothing to do with the actual term. For example, there are a lot of people in the us who are offended over the use of native american names for mascots of universities. However, the vast majority of those who are offended are not native american. It is one of those things where politics can play a deeper role than one might first realize.
We could go with the acronym TIKS which could stand for: Totally Insane Kooky Slimebags. It could also have a double meaning as Ticks are parasites that live off of other people. Much like these kooks do by selling you their books and survival gear.
the word retard has been used to describe when someone does something idiotic.
But doomtard is a different word than retard.
They only happen to have the same ending.
It is only offensive when you quote mine these words.
But when you read the complete comment, all of it, then you immediately see that it has nothing to do with people that have this condition.
Political correctness never works. All it does is create over-sensitivity in people that most likely never deal with this in the first place. And then they are trying to convince the real people that have this condition that they have to associate something negative to it. The words that becomes offensive only shifts, and you never help the person with the condition in the first place when you overprotect him.
In addition, this site is viewer by the whole wide world.
The majority of people coming here are not English speaking. The word retard has no meaning in their language. For them it is just an English word they hear a lot and they start using it out of habit without realizing what it actually means. But we are not using retards, we are using doomtard. That is a different word.
I did look at many different words that people put here. The most efficient word that describes the lunatics was doomtard. It is a word that reached a whole wide range of people. It is a not too educated word that children would not understand. It is also a word that none English speaking people would instantly understand. And people who are dyslectic (as I am). This word also have the punch for people that were scared to use against the lunatics. And lunatics intended to promote their doom runs faster away because the weak people use that word against them.
But doomtard is a different word than retard.
This is the very core of the issue.
I've been an online gamer for a long time, where the term "retard" is all too often used to indicate someone who has done something stupid. I hate it. I personally, have never used it. The word has a definition which specifically mentions people with a mental disability.
The word "doomtard" however, does not. It doesn't exist in any real dictionary. It has no meaning, other than that assigned by those who use it. And personally, I think treating it as offensive purely because of the "tard" part is silly. If you're offended by it, it's you that's associating it with mental disabilities.
I found this neat definition in the Urban Dictionary:
A person that is obsessed with supposed impending World doom to the point of social dysfunction, usually revolving around societal conspiracies or end-time prophecies. This type of person tends to neurotically inflict his or her doom beliefs on as much of the World as possible, typically via various channels of the Internet.
I've used the word "doomtard", and to me this is exactly the meaning I intended. Note there's no mention of mental disability anywhere in there.
Hear the music before the song is over…
But doomtard is a different word than retard.
But the thing is, the word "tard" from "doomtard" is derived from the word "retard" and is meant to mean the same thing as "retard," which is evident by its usage.
I'm not sure how suggesting someone not use the term is "overprotecting" anyone. Sure, some people are offended by everything and anything, but that's another topic. This is about respecting people by not using words that describe their differences in a derogatory manner to insult someone who you think has done something wrong. Of course, if you choose to still use the word "doomtard," then fine. That's your right.
But the thing is, the word "tard" from "doomtard" is derived from the word "retard" and is meant to mean the same thing as "retard," which is evident by its usage.
No it was never meant to mean retard.
If we wanted to mean retard then we would have used the word retard, not doomtard.
I have a mental disability, and I know it's not directed at me. I'm not offended by it in the least…why? Because I know it doesn't pertain to myself. I don't really get why people get offended with words….they're just that: words, nothing more. But if people have to be picky about it…why not call them Doomderps? :D
…or is the word "Derp" considered offensive too? :P I have no idea.
JadeGryphon, I completely agree with you.
Doomderp? Would that give the same punch?
All political correct alternatives that I have seen so far are too weak and too general to have any effect.
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