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Having an impairment has nothing to do with 'ability'. Your ability to do something in the normal sense of the word is related to your resources and your education. e.g. Flapping your arms will not give you an ability to fly. However, if you have the education to know you can fly by plane and the education to know where to buy a ticket plus having the resources to pay for the ticket, airport duty, passport etc., you can fly. These days even pigs can fly if they are put in aeroplanes. The prefix 'dis' come from the Greek and implies 'apart from': the suffix. The suffix 'ability' has come to imply 'a legal ability' in English. A 16th century trader with Turkey was deemed 'disabled' because the trader had not tried to renew the Royal Charter allowing to trade. The were various historic struggles by both Catholics and Jews for equality in British society. Catholic and Jewish men were denied the right to hold office, become a MP or be a judge, etc. Lord Mackay (a great English historian) included an essay in his 'Lays of Rome and other essays' on the 'Civil disabilities of the Jews' in around 1830. I am disabled in London in many ways, one of them bars me (and other powered wheelchair users) from using the eight UndergrounD stations in my borough. I am also disabled in Oxford because of discrimination against wheelchair users (and many others%2 -- War makes people ill. _______________________________________________________________ The Black Sea is off the north coast of which country? postmaster.co.uk http://www.postmaster.co.uk/cgi-bin/meme/quiz.pl?id=177 ________________End of message______________________ Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List are now located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.