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Sticks and stones semantics
Sudie Crouch
There have been a few words I have tried to eradicate from my child’s vocabulary. Fat is one of them. Retarded is another. These are words that have bothered me for various reasons for a long time. Fat is a word that taunted me as a child and is a word I have called myself, even in the times I was frighteningly skinny. Retarded is a word that just shouldn’t be said. There are other words that are just hurtful as well, and they all vary in their sting depending on their intent. Does that mean bad words don’t sometimes fall out of my mouth for various reasons?