The AC does have a point. Every time some gang of bigots start using a word that word gains a toxic implication and becomes a slur.

Picture the words "Niger" – latin for "black", as well as "Fagot" from old french – and what those two originally inoffensive words became with minor adjustments.

Similarly the word "hysteria" has taken a looping road between being a misogynist descriptor to being a universally applied synonym for "panic", and then back again.

"In doing so, we can come to understand how such language shapes the way we view our society and how it works."

And, depending on which subgroup of society we talk to, how "word X" is defined and utilized in that particular setting.

I once listened to a black comedian doing a standup with no visuals. I thought i was listening to some white trash dissing black people. When I actually watched the show, seeing who was doing the blackup, it was suddenly just funny. I took away several good lessons for that, as well as a tangential new-found appreciation for how Poe’s Law works in reality.

In one of your earlier comments on this thread;

"No, it isn’t. My point is that the word “retard”, in the context that makes it an ableist slur, is offensive. Replacing it with a slur against another group (e.g., a racial slur) proves as much."

If the replacement makes contextual sense then that is true enough – like replacing an acceptable wording with the less acceptable synonym. Bigots usually try to get away with wrapping a toxic message that way.

In the example you posited, however, we can’t really replace the word "retard" with "black", for instance, if we’re talking about an assorted group of less intelligent school children doing dumb shit, some of whom will, statistically, be white or asian.

I think a shorter way for you to bring the message across is simple – if the word in question defines as a condition over which the afflicted has no power then that word probably shouldn’t be used in derogatory fashion.

And that rule STILL leaves us with gems like idiot, dickbag, moron, fraud, scumsucker (and saprophyte), douche, shitweasel, coprophage, asshole, asshat, dickhead, a number of animal/insect comparisons and plain old fuck or fart to use when we need to talk about the general gist of any given shit-for-brains.