This seems to miss one of the key roles euphemism plays (and why it courts controversy) it is interventionist and draws attention to a pattern of thought in order to get you to think differently about it. Part of the role a phrase like “differently abled” plays is to estrange your base assumptions about disability and to signal the existence of and your membership in a group of people concerned to change the conditions around disability (note that this is not the same as signaling “virtue” although it may do that as well—what I’m talking about is the construction and renewal of group identity around a social project).
Accordingly, you need new words whenever the old ones become standard, since at that point they no longer serve the estranging/interventionist role.
Accordingly, you need new words whenever the old ones become standard, since at that point they no longer serve the estranging/interventionist role.