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I don't think I've ever heard it used by an English person. It reminds me of 'en retard' which means late in French.
@NotLemming @MountingSuspicion fellow English and I would say it's even more offensive here than in the US! Maybe that's why you've not heard it.
I'm not saying I haven't heard any offensive terms for the disabled, just not that one. A lot of them are dialect or slang words, probably spaz (spastic) is the most common but there are lots.
yeah I know! But it was very common for a long time. Retard was voted worst by British disabled people in the early 2000s (and of course the Spastics Society had to rename to Scope in the 90s because of the misuse of the term, so it's significant if R is worse). Currently both on the "strong" column in the ofcom list (which is a sometimes fun, sometimes horrible reference guide). https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/tv-radio-and-on-demand-research/tv-research/offensive-language-quick-reference-guide.pdf
It took the US a *lot* longer to recognise spastic/spaz as offensive too.
I can't believe I wasn't hearing it, but maybe that was because of where I grew up, where we might say someone was slow or backwards (not meaning to offend) rather than use intellectual disability, which is quite a formal term. I thought the R one was a recent Americanism (like so much today, bah humbug).
I only quite recently learned that the word cripple is considered offensive. A lot of these words seem respectable to me somehow, but I suppose many of them started out that way and only became offensive due to how they were used as insults. Like moron, idiot etc were originally medical categories. I'll have a look at the list, thanks. I'm sure there will some surprises for me.
I think it got offensive when it was used with" mentally retarded" so blatantly
In French it would be 'attardé' I think.