I certainly agree with Ron on the use of the term 'handicapped' origins. Apart from the myth being untrue, it is also doesn't advance our position in society.
Different cultures had different attitudes to people with impairments. Even these sensitivities changed at various times, they also differed about attitudes to the cause or type of sources of impairments.
For example the status of people with physical impairments changed after the occupation of Egypt by the Greeks. Spartans had different attitudes to Athenians. Roman occupation made further changes. There are many leaders who had physical impairments, including Sparta.
Another point is the source of the information on terminology, poor nondisabled have less chance of acquiring good information about descriptive language than rich people. We should not be looking for one word or one way descriptions.
The essential aspect about terminology is that there is a specific distinction between the 'impairment' and discrimination against people associated with that impairment.
I think the term 'physically challenged' was first used in a Re-evaluation Co-counselling psycho-therapeutic workshop.
Keith
Keith Armstrong
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002 07:53:09 -1000
Ron Amundson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Let me be the first to spoil Maria's hope that we not start another debate
> on language.
>
> I have one serious concern about how we express our objections to particular
> terms. It is _not_ necessary to prove that an expression has evil origins in
> order to show that the expression is objectionable. A word can have
> perfectly noble origins, but nevertheless be objectionable because of the
> connotations that it has picked up along the way.
>
> The very worst case of this is the disability rights myth about the
> "cap-in-hand begging" origins of the term "handicapped." IT'S NOT TRUE!!!!!
> I just got my very own CD version of the Oxford English Dictionary and I can
> post the real etymology if anyone wants it. It was used for hundreds of
> years with no reference to disability at all, and when the reference got
> carried over it was not in a particularly demeaning way (at least that's how
> I see it -- the sporting angle may seem objectionable to some).
>
> Besides which, someone posted a newspaper column where an activist had
> quoted the cap-in-hand myth to a newspaper reporter, who had promptly looked
> it up in the dictionary and publicly made a fool of the activist in print in
> a large circulation newspaper. Let's try to not do that any more.
>
> This doesn't mean that the term "handicapped" is ok just because its origins
> are not oppressive. It is not ok, because it is associated with the
> oldfashioned and oppressive social attitude towards disability. The same
> point can be made about "colored" with reference to, um, African Americans,
> people of African descent, etc. No one has to prove an evil origin of a term
> in order to point out that it is no longer acceptable usage. (And just as
> some elderly American black people have no objection to "colored," I have no
> personal objection to "handicapped." But I realize that most activists do.)
>
> My personal reaction to "physically challenged" is that it's euphemistic and
> cutesy, it assumes (like all euphemisms) that the word disabled is so
> horrible that it cannot be spoken , and it is clearly dishonest in that it
> gives an "upbeat" label to a concept that the speaker obviously believes is
> too horrible to be spoken.
>
> Maybe the sporting angle is where "challenged" came from, and maybe not.
> Frankly I don't think it matters to whether the word is objectionable or
> not.
>
> Ron
>
> Ron Amundson
> University of Hawaii at Hilo
> Hilo, HI 96720
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Maria Barile" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 3:23 AM
> Subject: origin of term
>
>
> Hello everyone
>
> It is not my intention to begin another debate on language, but I would like
> to know the origin of the term "physically challenged." Did it begin North
> American or a European as a terminology? I remember seeing it for the 1st
> time in the 1980s. In my linguistically naive days I thought that it made
> reference to sport, at least sport and disability. I would like to be able
> to explain to a local media personality why this euphemism is not an okay
> term to use however I need to know where it comes from, and that it did not
> began within our community somewhere either than Canada.
>
> Maria
>
>
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