I never actually understood why retarded was used by mechanics when a car wasn't running right "The timing on this is a bit retarded" but now I know. Thank you
There's also a thing called a retarder built into lorries and other heavy vehicles so they don't melt their brake pads, think engine breaking as the basic version, add special engineering sauce and you get something that is good at slowing stuff down without burning up, but not good at all at arresting it in place. The term is also used with railroads but those are actual breaks. Similar to the ones you see on roller-coasters.
Not really surprising. That last part "tard" comes from the Latin tardus which basically means slow or late.
The "re" particle originally just had a meaning of repetition, in this case. So being late (not for the first time? )
So changing the first part of the word wouldn't change the meaning of it so easily.
Maybe technically something like "intard" could make sense in that way (similarly as what you find in words like indomitable, impossible, ineffective etc), but it doesn't really exist.
Or if we want to make it more meme-like, tarden't?
Protarded actually exists as a slang with completely different meaning, but that's out of scope
I was just on a trip to France with my brother who doesn't speak French. He was quite amused by all the signs that said retard, like when a train was running late. I speak French so it was utterly normal for me