More than words

Careless talk may not nowadays cost lives as it might have during the war, but there is a price to pay for continuous thoughtless usage says Penelope Friday

It’s almost impossible to go through a single week without hearing a remark which implies something negative about, or trivialises, disability. Insults such as “You spaz!” or “What a retard” are immediate examples that come to most people’s minds, but their very offensiveness makes them in some ways less of a threat to people with disabilities than commonplace phrases which abound in the English language. How often do you hear someone comment

“Oh, that’s so lame” or “how short-sighted of you”, both of which sayings reference disability in a negative way?

This use of language, however, is not only associated with healthy, able-bodied adults.

Many disabled people not only use disablist language but also criticise those who seek to change it, calling suggested alternative phrases “political correctness gone mad”.

Intriguingly, often the same people can see the offensiveness of “that’s gay” – a homophobic phrase also commonly used to demean something or someone – and yet don’t follow the same argument relating to remarks like “that’s so lame”. Both phrases imply that the subject or object under question is rubbishy. Change the first word in each sentence to “I’m” or “You’re” and the problem becomes clearer. “You’re gay” would mean “You’re rubbish” – and what message does that send about homosexuality?

Similarly, “I’m so lame” implies uselessness more than it does an uneven gait.

Language has repercussions. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and it both shows a society’s beliefs and helps to shape them. Often, people use the argument that “everyone says it” – as if the majority are never wrong. Newsflash: fifty years ago “working like niggers” was a socially acceptable saying in regular use. Were the people who fought against its use wrong to do so? Probably when that phrase first began to drop from common parlance, many people said: “Oh, how ridiculous: it’s not meant in a derogatory way.” Yet now, few people would deny it is racist. The language of the time demonstrated society’s feelings about racial differences; changing the use of language helped to change opinions.

I’m sure people who use phrases such as “how short-sighted” or “turn a deaf ear” don’t intend to degrade people with disabilities, and would be offended if it were suggested that they were doing so. However, the regular use of disablist language has a drip-drip effect. A drop of water spilt onto a rock doesn’t wear away the stone – yet a steady drip of water has, over time, precisely this effect. Each word which devalues the life or experiences of disabled people is like a drip of water adding to society’s unspoken, and probably unconscious, feeling that disability lessens a person’s worth.