Things are moving fast in the destruction of our language. Perhaps that is nothing new, but the pessimism and pettiness of our political correct screen audience and the new religions of shaming is removing once helpful and useful objective words from our language.
THE TRUTH can now get you into jail
As the West adopts the stranglehold strictures of the East . people stop talking the truth because they fear being shamed. eg A young woman does not speak up to a dominating male because he uses her private anger towards him as a weapon against her ( gas lighting ) Our young people no longer have the sound understanding of the place of anger that would enable them to escape the self righteous rubbish talk of others who claim goodness because " they are not angry ' .
THUS The pejorative interpretation of words you say ( not what you mean to say ) can now get you put you in jail for using them . Shaming is the name of the game ; Anger is named always evil by the narcissist who gets away with it because we can see it in his target but never in himself .
And while all we Westerners need to be reminded about the commandments and their insistence that we never call someone an idiot; no adjectives about particular persons made in the image of God ,
YET we wanna and need to be accurate when describing the diseases amongst our children.
THE SCIENCE
Describing retardation in adults ...
no ,,,,none of us are qualified here but let/s explore the territory in the good name of describing a problem that needs to be addressed.
A handicap that can hopefully be overcome? No final labels apply to this audience
IN ART
a safer way to avoid labelling a problem with a group of adults ( us ) is to use a picture word that describes the general problem as we see it - the phenomenon ----if the cap fits the audience will know .
I found a picture word for a lot of people who I now know to have never grown up . eg
Imbecile is a perfectly useful word that began its life as accurately describing someone who is feeble. The person maybe old or very young. They are so weak that that they need a staff to walk with and they may or may not be able to handle the staff . The word though is not accepted for use this century because of its common use in a pejorative and derogatory sense
The word is no longer acceptable in public use but many adults are feebleminded in the sense that they have never grown up ; they talk about subjects they do not understand or have never experienced,
Real life is always a risk management exercise and those who have lived in risk free homes would not assume authority over those who live on the land for example.
A feeble person cannot walk successfully across any paddock let alone through an ecosystem that is anything but feebleminded in its crushing blows on good intentions.