Gosh I didn't know I was retarded when I was little according to the definition. I was developmentally delayed in my early childhood and I even scored in the mildly retarded range and then when I was about 10 I started scoring in the average to above average range. But there is also socially retarded and that's us. Retarded just means slow and as a figure of speech it means immature, stupid, childish, boring. I never knew the figure of speech came from mentally retarded people until I started to be told that. That explained why lot of people would take offense to that even though a situation had nothing to do with mental retardation.
I was labeled retarded as a kid. Either I was stupid or retarded. Shame the kids only knew three words, smart, stupid and retarded. If you weren't smart and you weren't dumb, then you were retarded, if you aren't retarded and you aren't smart, then you're stupid. I can remember having that argument with the kids on my bus. They tell me "Then you're retarded." every time I told them I wasn't stupid and then they say "then you're stupid," when I say I wasn't retarded.