Dumb: stupid, but not in a classroom sense, more of a social one, synonymous with mistake, and generally seen as benign a word. In my experience dumb is used all too commonly. “Wow that was so dumb, I can’t believe I forgot my keys” could be an excerpt from any young adult daily conversation. I mention the age because feel that in my generation, words that were seen as filthy in the past have lost some of their edge. Previously, I know dumb was used as a medical term for being mute, so the severity of the word must have been derived from this past definition. However like I said before, I think dumb is rarely used in a medical context among younger people. Still dumb can easily also be meant in an offensive way, especially if used directly at a person. TV often even replaces dumb with the less insulting word, stupid. To quote a teenage girl satire, Mean Girls, “God, Karen you are so stupid.” Even when using a modified word, like stupid, I know that I would still be hurt if I were Karen. In my personal experience dumb has uses that range from nonthreatening to nasty in meaning, but rarely is used as its original definition- to have a lack of speech.