Please stop using the word retarded in that context. That passed as acceptable in the early ninties, why the hell do people think it's ok again? Some fads, once they die, should stay dead.

It disturbs me to see how often Stranger writers, who otherwise seem to choose their words carfeully and intellegently, are beginning to use this word.

We have so many other, better words. Such as those that don't mock the mentally handicapped.

Seriously.

Dictionary.com says it best;

"A slowing down or hindering of progress; a delay."

So, when Mr. Frizzelle said, "..does it or does it not look retarded to have Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album in the same sentence, but for only one of them to be italicized?" he was in the right.

So, pull that stick out of your ass, retard.

Was Frizzelle really trying to say that it looks "slow" for the White Album to remain unitalicized? Was it that the passage therefore appeared "delayed," or as if its "progress" had been "hindered?" That's not what I got from it.

It seemed to me that he was saying it looks stupid for one album title to be italicized and one not. Certainly the word exists outside of its slang meaning, but that's not how he was using it.

Am I the only one who's noticed a sharp rise in its slang usage-and among people who did not previously say it? I don't consider myself especially vigilant or sensative on this matter, and I don't like to play word police, but I just don't get why this word is back.