Mairs

I am a cripple. I choose this word to name

me. I choose from among several possibilities,

the most common of which are "handicapped"

and "disabled." I made the choice a number of

5

5 years ago, without thinking, unaware of my

motives for doing so. Even now, I'm not sure

what those motives are, but I recognize that they

are complex and not entirely flattering. People -

crippled or not-wince at the word "cripple," as

10

10 they do not at "handicapped" or "disabled."

Perhaps I want them to wince. I want them to

see me as a tough customer, one to whom the

fates/gods/viruses have not been kind, but who

can face the brutal truth of her existence

15

15 squarely. As a cripple, I swagger.

But, to be fair to myself, a certain amount

of honesty underlies my choice. "Cripple"

seems to me a clean word, straightforward and

precise. It has an honorable history, having

20

20 made its first appearance in the Lindisfarne

Gospel in the tenth century. As a lover of words,

I like the accuracy with which it describes my

condition: I have lost the full use of my limbs.

"Disabled," by contrast, suggests any incapacity,

25

25 physical or mental. And I certainly don't like

"handicapped," which implies that I have

deliberately been put at a disadvantage, by

whom I can't imagine (my God is not a

Handicapper General), in order to equalize

30

30 chances in the great race of life. These words

seem to me to be moving away from my

condition, to be widening the gap between word

and reality. Most remote is the recently coined

euphemism "differently abled," which partakes

35

35 of the same semantic hopefulness that

transformed countries from "undeveloped" to

"underdeveloped," then to "less developed," and

finally to "developing" nations. People have

continued to starve in those countries during the

40

40 shift. Some realities do not obey the dictates of

language.

Mine is one of them. Whatever you call

me, I remain crippled. But I don't care what you

call me, so long as it isn't "differently abled,"

45

45 which strikes me as pure verbal garbage

designed, by its ability to describe anyone, to

describe no one. I subscribe to George Orwell's

thesis that "the slovenliness of our language

makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts."

50

50 And I refuse to participate in the degeneration of

the language to the extent that I deny that I have

lost anything in the course of this calamitous

disease; I refuse to pretend that the only

differences between you and me are the various

55

55 ordinary ones that distinguish any one person

from another. But call me "disabled" or

"handicapped" if you like. I have long since

grown accustomed to them; and if they are

vague, at least they hint at the truth. Moreover, I

60

60 use them myself. Society is no readier to accept crippledness than to accept death, war, sex,

sweat, or wrinkles. I would never refer to

another person as a cripple. It is the word I use

to name only myself.