Difficulties with the word "disabled"

In the run-up to the opening of the 14th Summer Paralympics today, Philip Craven, president of the International Paralympics Committee, called on the media to avoid using the word "disabled" when reporting on the Games. Although praiseworthy, the statement is based on a linguistic misunderstanding, the liberal daily Corriere del Ticino writes: "There are words that express disdain. They deserve to be banned from the vocabulary and should be avoided. But as much as the word 'disabled' does point to a state of being disadvantaged, it is not one of those words. We have to ask ourselves if there is a word for disabled that does not have a negative connotation. ... 'Differently abled' is one of the goody-goody linguistic masterpieces. Because basically it contains a double discrimination; it describes the disabled as different also as regards their talents. ... Do people really believe this is doing the disabled a favour? This is not a problem of dictionaries. There simply is no way of describing the disabled as anything but disabled."

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