My wife works with handicapped people and that entire workforce and culture has a very bad time with the word retarded. It took me a long while to convince her and some of her co-workers that the word just means slowed and nothing else. If you call someone a retard, then you being duragatory. Saying something is retarded is technically saying it is slowed. Most folks dont use or understand the word in its true context and percieve its something against handicap people. So, I'm guessing Sarah is caught up in this culture and by her stature and circumstances was probably expected to say something.

I was at a presentation once about being sensitive to minorities and people with disabilities. The presenter told us something that blew my mind. He told us that the word handicaped was wideley accepted as OK but in truth its highly duragatory. He told us that the term developed in the early 1900's. He said that disabled folks did not have the services available to them like they have now days and to get money they would peddle for money on the sidewalk. They collected the money in hats and somehow the phrase "handy cap" was used to describe them. Its now in the form of handicap. Not sure if the guy was FOS but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't lie in front of a crowd like that.