Comment by benhoyt

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?