Aibu to wish Americans didn't use the word handicaped

[Theblackdogagain]

I'm British living in Britain. My son is a wheelchair user and I'm sensitive about the language used around it. I'm listening to a brand new American audio book and they use the word handicapped. I know its still used there but it grates on me. AIBU even though I'm not American or living in USA?

I get what you mean as my ds has ASD and wouldn't consider himself as disabled. But do you object to the word disabled in the same way and if not why not? It is just the sound of the word you don't like, maybe that it sounds old fashioned/dated in this country. I just read on wiki that disabled is not considered more polite in the US too now.

I hate that (perhaps until very, very recently) retard was widely used as a joking insult in the US. Here's a montage of clips of it being widely used in the media for any deniers.
https://www.spreadtheword.global/video-archive/r-word-in-the-media-montage

This might not be what you want to hear but just about every slur or offensive term (spastic being a good example) was once the medical/official term for a condition. If handicapped/disabled etc were replaced with ‘peace’ or ‘serendipity’ (considered among the most beautiful English words) they too would be perceived as slurs in time.

I'm disabled but actually would prefer to use the word 'handicap', you get a handicap in golf and in horse racing, it maakes things harder.

Disability is so negative.

My mother, in the 70s and 80s, was horrified by the word "Cripple, crippled"... I used to hear my MIL use it, often. But she was parochial North Wales and we were London...my MIL was simply oblivious, she just didn't realise, ( although also, was not prepared to change with the times).

My mother is now 93 and will talk about "People of colour" not "coloured" people.
I'm very proud of her.

You can't see that a disabled person referred to a someone who needs to be 'cap in hand' (begging) May be seen as offensive?

You can't see that a disabled person referred to a someone who needs to be 'cap in hand' (begging) May be seen as offensive?

But it's been pointed out that this is not the origin of the word.

Well, yes, if that was the case…but it isn’t.

But this isn't the origin of the word in relation to people who have a disability.

Are you disabled? Truly interested to know.

Spor on. I'm sure you are absolutely right.

I don't really understand why referring to people as coloured is offensive but people of colour isnt?
Somebody I user to.work with whose family were from Jamaica said she preferred black as coloured / people of colour to her meant all.differrent colours.

Yeah its not great is it, but language evolves. I am in a fb group for women with my disability it is prodamently American and they say disabled instead of handicapped. These terms will always exist least we haven't moved on to "differently abled" yet but it's coming 😳

i have 2 children who are wheelchair users and have a host of physical and learning disabilities and personally I couldn't get the least bit worked up about the use of the word handicapped in a book reading.
How exhausting modern life is when people manage to get offended over every little thing .

These terms will always exist least we haven't moved on to "differently abled" yet but it's coming

That's in use too, it's a frequently used term in the literature in my sector (differently abled; of different abilities etc)

In what context? I'd really be interested to know.

Yeah there'll be no words left soon, people will be scared to say anything! There are plenty of things to be angry, upset and offended by when you have a child who has to navigate a world in which the absolutely bare minimum is (begrudgingly) provided to help them access the world, but a word doesn't seem like something worth expending much energy on.

My mother is now 93 and will talk about "People of colour" not "coloured" people.
I'm very proud of her.

Why are you proud of this? Invariably most people hate people referring to them as coloured rather than black etc. Although in reality how often are being mentioning someone's race? I'm black but have to say its very very rare if at all I find the need to mention someone being white or whatever so curious what's different the other way around.

@ChristmasKraken people still say "handicapé" but the politically correct (and presumably official) term is "[personne(s)] en situation de handicap" which is rather cumbersome. "Handicap" obviously still means disability and is used in special needs assessments etc.

For pps who talked about colour-related euphemisms, I have no idea whether "black" or "noir" is better in France. I have heard elderly people say something that sounds like the N word, and in one case the speaker was quickly corrected (with "noir" I think) by another elderly person. I would usually say "africain(e)" because in these rural parts black people are nearly always recent arrivals from Africa, but I don't know what word to use for a black French person. Anyway, sorry to derail. I guess all this illustrates the difficulty of policing / adapting to PC speech internationally, even where the words used are the same as or similar to ours.

@Lapflop

Presumably people who aren't Black do not wish to be called Black, hence POC being used correctly?

Ask someone who is black and see what they say! I'm black, my friends and family who are black hate being referred to as 'coloured', i mean what does that even mean? White people aren't actually white as white is, but people don't act offended on their behalf when people refer to them as such. It's because others get offended on behalf of others and assume what they're offended by which actually invariably makes things worse.

@Lapflop
Yes you make an excellent point in that if people want to get outraged about anything disability related it should be the shocking lack of respite and support provided to families . There is a chronic lack of services and everything involves a long determined fight to secure even the most basic levels of help. It is so draining !
And even if you do win the battle you quickly learn that care services are funded so poorly and carers paid so badly that they cannot even recruit staff to deliver the support at the end of the day.
The health and social care system is collapsing around us( and the NHS is going the same way ) and we have a massive problem just around the corner.

It honestly doesn’t bother me at all.

The R word is also a huge favourite of Americans.

Until fairly recently you would come across ‘retarded’ in american scholarly journals.

If you do a google scholar search you will still find a lot that use the term, but most seem to come from Asia within the last few years. I think in academia the US now tend to go for ‘intellectual disbility’?

By the way, is ‘dark skin’ offensive?
I would have thought that dark skin / light skin would be the obvious choice and better than black / white (neither of which is accurate for majority of people) but I don’t hear anyone using it? Are these terms offensive?

That was so hard to read. I enunciated every extra letter on every word 😂