You casually called someone a "retard" (I assume that's the word) and someone took that wrongly? Of course they did! Even when "retard" was an acceptable put-down, it was still a put-down.
Maybe the way to avoid the "minefield" you speak of is to not put others down? Even deservedly! Just try to be nicer to everyone, even if they are not, themselves, nice.
You may be one of the few, in that case. Good! Other people might not understand that about you if you used that word around them.
Doug Stanhope has a great skit in which he explains that the word "retarded" was originally the sensitive way to refer to this group, because at the time they were called directly derogatory terms.
But, like with every such attempt it was quickly adopted as an insult.
My not particularly original take is that policing language addresses only the effect, not the cause. Question remains: should the world learn of our peaceful ways by force?
If it somehow became popular to describe people of a certain type using the phrase "people on the fringes of society," then within a generation or two kids would taunt each other in schoolyards with "No, you're on the fringes of society," and "No, you are!"
I once got into a debate with someone on Reddit where they claimed "Middle East" is an offensive term, which was news to me. They preferred "West Asia and Northern Africa", or something. I claimed that this is just taking the same path that "oriental" took, which is now taboo in some countries, even though it literally means "from the east" and is the opposite of "occidental".
I thought it was the 2020s.
But it's too good not to use, and it's the last good insult we have. Mental ableism is the last bastion. I make my stand here.
The slippery slope we're being forced down on leads to "don't be mean to anyone ever", and I, as a product of the era of https://youtu.be/C4dnCZSYmbY, fundamentally refuse to accept that.
Also I'm bringing back "special".
Negative words can change meaning or severity over time, in both directions, but if you aim for clear expression and avoid insults, it is unlikely anything you say or write will be judged badly in the future.
This might be the most British comment ive ever replied to
You got a license for that joke!?
It's pretty simple: you have freedom to say whatever you want, but if you're worried about how you'll be judged, now or in the future, then you will curtail your worst impulses. Alternatively, you can lean into your freedom, say whatever you want, and then deal with the fallout when it eventually comes.
Look at the comment to which I replied, and then tell me my reply doesn't fit.
It gets new mines because when a word becomes a widely used derogatory term for a group of people we need a non-derogatory word to use instead when when we are trying to talk about people in that group and aren't trying to be derogatory.
Also for many of these words most the general public has complete forgotten the non-slur/non-derogatory meaning (or has never known it). No amount of tone will fix that.
Imagine an unmarried couple with a child who gets a copy of the child's medical records from their pediatrician and see the child described as a "retarded bastard". The chances that they will know that "retarded" was once a medical term for someone who is behind on mental development and that "bastard" means a person born out of wedlock are pretty low. At best they are going to be greatly puzzled by the doctor using those words.
It feels more like a minefield than a joke. A minefield that gets new mines added every so often just to keep everyone on their toes. When I was younger, I used to feel like I could keep up with all the new taboo words, but it seems like it is happening faster and faster these days.
You can unintentionally say something that turns out to be taboo, and you're done for. Some years ago, I causally used the "r-word" and didn't even think anything of it, and blam! big mistake. We used to toss that one around all the time back in the 80s and 90s, felt kind of like a jerk when you used it in the early 2000s, but in the 2010s it's become totally lingua-non-grata. We learn the hard way from these experiences, but it does feel like a growing minefield.
Worse, when something innocent we write/say today becomes a slur in 2040, future people will dig back in time and judge us by the words we wrote in 2020. Do you know what will be a slur in 20 years? I don't.