Why is “disabled“ preferred over “handicapped”?

Question

The question may be too opinion based and highly contentious.

However, as a non native speaker with a serious disability, I have great trouble grasping why “disabled“ is supposed to be much better than “handicapped“. When I hear “handicapped“ I think of someone on the gym taking a position that makes the exercise harder and ideally still pulling it off (incidentally, this is what I think my disability does; it makes my life a hell of a lot harder, but in the end I still prevail).

When I hear “disabled“ I think of a machine completely switched off or an opponent immobilised (this is what I never want my disability to achieve: to make me feel utterly powerless).

Is it just a random effect of history that made “handicapped“ so much worse (because people have simply had more time abusing the word) or can it be understood from the connotations of the two words outside medicine?

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Sources that attest to the preferability of “disabled“ are quite easy to find, but they don’t explain why this preference came about. Examples: 1.

Another, which states that the connotation is opposite from what I expect, but not why: 2.

Here we have a comparison of the two including a summary table, but again “disabled“ would strike me as the much more negative, except for the disputed hand-in-cap etymology, which I understand could make the term undesirable: 3

Here, “handicap“ is connected to “Hand in Cap“ through a game of chance unrelated to begging: 4

Answer 1

According to linguist John McWhorter the answer is indeed history. Older terms accumulate baggage and are replaced by new terms in what is called the Euphemism Treadmill:

Crippled began as a sympathetic term. However, a sad reality of human society is that there are negative associations and even dismissal harboured against those with disabilities. Thus crippled became accreted with those overtones, so to speak, to the point that handicapped was fashioned as a replacement term free from such baggage.

However, because humans stayed human, it was impossible that handicapped would not, over time, become accreted with similar gunk. Enter disabled, which is now long-lived enough that many process it, too, as harbouring shades of abuse, which conditions a replacement such as differently abled.
— Euphemise this: McWhorter on The Euphemism Treadmill

Answer 2

In Italian, "handicappato" has also been replaced with "disabile", the former was used as an insult to challenge someone's intelligence or behaviour. When I was a child living in the UK, the term handicapped was practically synonymous with "cretin" "stupid" "imbecile" "spastic" and "idiot" four of which, funnily enough, were terms that were originally used in the medical field.

Calling someone handicapped when they have no physical or mental disability is clearly a misuse, and calling someone handicapped even if they are paraplegic, hearing impaired or have learning difficulties is also rude. So, why have medical conditions been used as insults? Because people the world over are generally unhappy cruel creatures, and name calling requires no analysis, forethought and, ironically, no intelligence.

Answer 3

The two terms most commonly used to describe a person who has a limitation are "handicapped" and "disabled":

A disability is the result of a medically definable condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.

A handicap is a barrier or circumstance that makes progress or success difficult, such as an impassable flight of stairs or a negative attitude toward a person who has a disability.

• A practical example: Janet Zeller, who has quadriplegia (some level of paralysis in all four limbs), has been told that she doesn't look "handicapped" when she is out paddling her sea kayak. Think about the situation. When Janet is paddling her sea kayak she is part of a sleek craft gliding through the water. There are no barriers to stop her or to "handicap" her. But she still has a disability.

The correct term is "disability"—a person with a disability. Person-first terminology is used because the person is more important than his or her disability.

(www.fs.fed.us)

Answer 4

The term "handicapped" is stronger than the term "disabled."

Both refer to a lack of ability, but while disabled means

not having one or more of the physical or mental abilities that most people have:

handicapped means

Having a condition that markedly restricts one's ability to function physically, mentally, or socially.

A disability may affect a person's life not at all, depending on what that person chooses to do, but it will arise to the level of handicap only if it does affect the life.

Consequently some people prefer the term "disabled" because it is less severe.

Answer 5

Such things are almost always down to contemporary ideas of political correctness, and very little more.

Beneath that, “disabled“ always includes “handicapped” but not the other way around.

Most people won't care, yet a disability is a condition, the cause of which is not relevant. Strictly, a handicap might be exactly the same condition, but the cause should be relevant.

Consider the other main use of "handicap", in racing. There, very clearly, an official "handicapper" reduces a horse's ability to carry a lighter jockey.

Such things are almost always down to contemporary ideas of political correctness, but at least the contrast between disability and handicap has some logic about it.

Without wishing to be harsh, consider instead the difference between the term "Mongoloid" which was common usage until the middle of the last century, and the modern "Downs' syndrome".

Crudely, "Mongoloid" was a partially accurate description of the physical characteristics of a condition. By contrast "Downs' syndrome" is not only meaningless without prior knowledge; it's not even grammatical. "A Mongoloid child" has both meaning and grammatical correctness; "a Downs' syndrome child" clearly lacks both.

Answer 6

All PC status words are bound to change with time or generational outlook and of course the temperament of the descriptive sub-culture that is being described. In a perfect world we would all be people, person or human, but too many people feel the need to prioritize or discriminate the people person or human that they are referring to based on their own perception or upbringing, which in part complicates an already complicated language such as English.

By society assigning a positive and negative value to these descriptive praises or descriptive words we actually loose out on the chance to get a better understanding of how someone views you as an individual, because we say that certain words are no longer politically correct and thus telling everyone what IS THE CORRECT phrase to use it casts confusion and actually only benefits the true bigot by making it known what he must say and what words to use to hide his real feelings about a person or class of people.

As a person, I feel that I should be described as exactly that as much as possible if it becomes necessary to identify me further I would be identified further if needed as a male or female; short, tall or average; dirty, clean, neat or slovenly, or whatever chosen descriptive word that the person feels needed to identify me as a different individual from the ten, twenty or two other people that may be around me or the person may know or be around based on the facts needed. I do not always need to be identified as a single white male with a disability, in fact most of the time I would prefer to just be called SCOTT. (TY for the edit I got lost trying to convey my thought and forgot other grammatical errors.)