one of my friends has a brother who is severely mentally handicapped. he thinks using the word is offensive. weve discussed it before. im not so sure i agree. he tried comparing the useage of the word "gay" with the word. but when some one says something is gay, they are correlating homosexualness with negativity. whereas when someone says something is retarded, yes its correlated with a negative, but thats the definition of the word retarded to begin with. there is no way to say retarded without it meaning something to the extent of less than, wrong with, negative.. etc. so i dont really agree with the idea that using the term is offense. but i can understand someone feeling that way and so i avoid using it.