Goddard and Galton

As I read about Goddard's use of language to describe intellectually disabled people I can't help but look back at my own experience with this type of language. I remember in middle school the most popular insult among sixth graders was "retarded". This word was not just used to describe people who we didn't like but to describe things and actions we didn't agree with. If we had school on a snowy day that was "retarded" or if someone made a silly joke that joke became "retarded". Since then I realize that formal language has changed from describing someone as "mentally retarded" to "mentally disabled". I also understand that retarded literally means slow moving.  When someone is mentally disabled it takes longer for their thought processes to work, if certain ones work at all. This word retarded would still probably be in use  if it didn't become a word used to insult. I don't know why as humans we take whatever the common term for mentally disabled is and turn it into an unusable insult. According to what we now know about Goddard this seems to be a trend. My challenge for myself and whoever else who reads this is to stop yourself when you go to call something or someone stupid, dumb, or idiotic. Otherwise, we just seem like sixth graders who can't think of a better adjective to describe something we don't like than "retarded".