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Comment by benhoyt | Hacker News Reader

Interesting perspective on the terms (in your last paragraph). I've long thought it's odd how this language has changed over the years. A long time ago a disabled person might have been called "retarded" -- that's probably the most offensive term of all now, but the literal meaning of the word itself is least offensive, simply meaning "slowed down". Then came "handicapped", which isn't used much anymore, but literally just means having some kind of restriction. Now we are much more enlightened and say "disabled" -- it's the least offensive term now, but if you take it literally that word is quite horrible, meaning "not working" or "incapacitated" or "turned off" or "unable to be used", as in "the bomb squad disabled the bomb". Why did we settle on a word that means "not working" for someone who has a handicap?

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Couldn't agree more, and don't even get me started on "differently abled".Facepalm

It's a weird one and I really do think a lot of the time it depends on who's saying it and in what context, I think when there is a large power imbalance than the use of the word disabled can be really horrible but between peers, not so much.

Personally I prefer being called Stuart, possibly "you know, you've met him before, he's the one in the wheelchair", that sort of thing. I don't think there is one right answer because you obviously can't please everyone all the time, but I do think that large institutions and those with power have to be very careful about how they phrase things because you will come off as dismissive if you're not careful. Even if you don't need to be.

I read GP's last paragraph as distinguishing between the use of "disabled people" vs. "people with disabilities," rather than between the use of "disabled" (or words with the same root) vs. other words.

My company did some work for an organization that supported people with disabilities in the workforce. The client stressed the importance of the distinction between using "people with disabilities" as opposed to "disabled people," with the former being much preferred because - due to its structure - it puts the focus (i.e. the first word) on "people" rather than "disabled/disability".

...but it also says the disability lies with that person, and this is likely to be rejected by people who prefer the social model.

When people can't read a website it's tempting to tell them to ctrl + or install user CSS. But better is to just design the site in ways that don't exclude large numbers of the population, let alone people with visual impairment. It's not that person's eyesight that excludes them, it's the designer's poor choice of font size and colour that excludes them.

There are problems with this model, but it's still mostly useful.

For me, the word "disabled" brings to mind the novel _Ender's Game_, particularly the scenes in the battle room where that word describes the kids who have been completely paralyzed for the remainder of the battle and thus can't do anything. Or, in a UI toolkit, the word "disabled" refers to a widget that can't be used in the current context and, typically, is grayed out on screen.

Maybe since the characteristic being called out is related to ability?

Of course there is a spectrum, and at some point nearly everyone is unable to do common tasks we usually take for granted. I'm amazed how quickly I forget after recovering from an injury or finding a workaround to a physical limitation.

I personally still use "handicapped", because it is most accurate; if people call me out on it and ask if I mean "disabled", I reply with "not unless he/she is completely unable to do anything."

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