On Fri, 11 Jan 2019 at 22:37, Philip Barnes <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The word handicap in this context is very outdated. It is likely to be > seen as condescending. > Off-topic, but "handicapped" was once considered the preferred term. It came from a worldview influenced by religion, that God had caused people to be born differently in order to make life fairer: they were such good souls that they needed to be handicapped (as race horses are) in order that they didn't have an unfair advantage over the others. And it was considered better than epithets like "cripple" that were used disparagingly. Of course, human nature being what it is, the term "handicapped" came to be used disparagingly. So now people are "disabled" instead. Except that is also being increasingly used disparagingly, so people now have special needs. To bring it back on topic, I suspect that whatever term is chosen, in a few decades it will be frowned upon in favour of a new term. I wish it were otherwise, but human nature has already required the serial invention of euphemisms for many things because well-intentioned terms become used, by some, in a disparaging way. -- Paul
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