Why do Americans insist on calling disabled people 'Handicapped'?

#1 It is an urban legend that the origin of handicapped is cap in hand. It is in gaming as in equalizing the playing field in golf. See: http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/handicap.as...

#2 All Americans do not use handicapped. It is in more common use than it should be since it is offensive to most people with disabilities, but it is losing popularity.

Maybe we are too hung up on words. I've read other places where the phrase 'person with a disability' is preferred because it emphasizes that they are a person first, and disabled second.

They would choose to say 'people with disabilities' rather than lumping us all into the category of 'the handicapped' or 'the disabled'. And a lot of us use the acronyms PWD (person with disability) and AB (able bodied) so that seems to be more widely accepted.

My Father had severe RA(rheumatoid arthritis) since the age of 21, about 1935, and always referred to himself as 'disabled' not handicapped and got very mad when someone called him crippled. I have friends who are wheelchair users who call themselves gimps. I always thought a gimp was someone who walks with a limp. Maybe I'm confused.

Lately I've been seeing the broader term 'special needs' a lot. I'm a wheelchair user and my doctor says I'm 100% disabled. How many words do we need and which ones do we want to use? Yes, I'm definately confused.

They don't know the history of the word, nor do they care. They think it's political correctness.

Yes it is true you handicap a horse and you have a handicap in golf, howeve the term handicap implies an attitude that someone is incapble and needs extra special assitance . It also implies that people who are disabled have all the disabilities not just the ones they may already have.

Using the term physically challenged is nuts, I know some perfectly able -bodied people who are klutzes. They are physcially challenged I am not , I have a visual impairment , a disability.

You no longer use offensive terms for certain ethnic groups or religious groups or racial groups or women, unless you're supremely ignorant, so now it's time you stopped using the term handicapped as it is offensive to MOST people with disabilities.

As for the physically challenged parking that probably would include most drivers.

Call it what it is , disabled parking spaces. If you need to put a large van with an H beside.

Some of you tabs really take the cake.

Actually you call someone with a disability a person first who has whatever disability. Handicapped and crippled are offensive terms to most persons with disabilities. Not all persons with disabilities have mental health issues or have intellectual impairments, but this seems to a myth that keeps rearing its ugly head and is usually said out of fear and ignornance. Btw when you asked this question did similar questions with the same idea not come up? Or did you think your question was unique?

Handicapped, disabled, challenged- all have the ability to offend someone at some time... It's better than what I heard used when I was a kid, such as being called a crazy, a retard, or a cripple. I try to take what people say by how they mean it- if they are attempting to be polite, any of the PC words is okay with me.

Thats a nice theory, however it's completely wrong.. Handicap does in fact stem from "hand in cap" from some medieval sporting activity and as a word originally meant "fair and equitable treatment", basically like it does in golf or betting. So around 1900 or so it picked up meaning for the disabled as "one who needs help". It has nothing to do with being a beggar.

I dislike "handicapped" - because it is a sports or betting term.

I really hate "challenged"! A challenge is something one does - climb a mountain or run a race etc. I do not "do" paralysed, I "am" paralysed.

The most commonly used term in South Africa (where I live) currently is "disabled". "Handicapped" went out of fashion here during the late 1970s to early 1980s period. Our traffic signs don't use words when a symbol can be used. (There are far too many different languages spoken here.)

I find it quite peculiar that on this forum most people (who are clearly Americans by the context of their posts) use the term "disability" only when refering to a type of welfare grant.

Could a sentence such as this be spoken naturally by an American? "Handicapped people recieve dissability to help with the costs of dealing with their challenge."

Actually, you are incorrect about the origin of the word. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word first appears in the language about 1653 as "hand-in-cap," a betting game going back to the 14th Century.

The phrase corrupted into handy-cap in the mid-1700s to descrive a horse race where a horse might be required to carry an amount of dead weight to equalize it's chances against the rest of the field. This soon resulted in the word becoming "handicap" and is still used in racing today.

Since being handicapped puts the horse at a disadvantage, the verb form, "to handicap" (as in to put at a disadvantage) came into use around 1864.

The racing term began to be used as a noun to denote a generic "encumbrance or disability" around 1890. The adjective, meaning "encumbered or disabled" came into use around the beginning of the First World War, ca. 1915.

So when you are called "handicapped" you are being called "encumbered" and "disabled" or, at very worst, a fast horse that needs to be encumbered so the rest of us have an equal chance.

FYI: The state of Connecticut defines me as "handicapped" because of the effects of illness on my mobility.

Lots of people say it, especially because it is usually used to describe reserved parking spaces for people with disabilities. I never knew it had anything to do with beggars, though I did know that lots of disabled people don't like the term. I think when people say it they think they are using the correct/ modern term even if they're not. I'm pretty sure most of them have no idea of the origins or connotations you're referring to.

I be honest here many people still insist on calling disabled people "Handicapped" because many people truly believe that not only the disabled is unable to take care of ourselves but we require the assistance of the "normal people" to maintain stability in our lives. Bullsh*t I know but many people that not only truly believe this bogus lie but they preach this lie to their children. Thus, the cycle of discrimination continues.