“Mind your language!”

That was what parents used to tell their kids to warn them not to swear. In the last 20 or 30 years however, some people in the disabled community seem to have taken that saying even more seriously than ever before.

“Disabled”, “handicapped”, “special needs”, “differently abled”, ” handicapable”. All these words and phrases have been used over the years to describe those of us whose physical abilities differ from most people’s. Then there’s the very long-winded “people first” language, as in “person with a disability” or “person with special needs” and so on.