From: Nikolai Weibull <now@...>
Date: 2011-11-28T22:19:42+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:41365] Re: [ruby-trunk - Bug #5625] Remove profanity and pejoratives

On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 13:43, Andrew Grimm <andrew.j.grimm@gmail.com> wrote:

> I had assumed that the person(s) who had used "lame" didn't know what the word originally meant (and therefore filing a separate ticket would be an over-reaction), whereas no-one has that excuse for using terms derived from "mentally retarded".

Lame also means ���marked by pain or rigidness��� and is even a noun
describing ���a thin metal plate, especially one of the overlapping
steel plates in medieval armor���.

Retarded also has two meanings (American Heritage):

1. /Often Offensive/ Affected with mental retardation.
2. Occurring or developing later than desired or expected; delayed.

It���s you who are interpreting these two words the way you are.  You
would be wise not to make assumptions of what other people mean by
using them or how other people interpret them.

If you find the RubyGems source lame, in the ���marked by pain or
rigidness��� sense, keep to applying written massage and leave the
rhetoric out of it.  It���s falling on deaf ears.