| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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6. Names and Labels: Social, Racial, and Ethnic Terms
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| § 21. crippled |
| The adjective crippled and the corresponding noun cripple are now considered offensively blunt when used of a person with a hindering or incapacitating physical condition. The current preference in most cases is for disabled, as in an accident that left her disabled or improved access for the disabled. But when the emphasis shifts from the person to the impairment itself, there is generally no reason to avoid the stronger term. Thus while you might choose to say He was increasingly disabled by multiple sclerosis, you might describe the disease itself as crippling, especially if your purpose is to stress the seriousness of its physical effects. There is a great difference between the insensitive labeling of a particular person as a cripple and the deliberate use of such a word for its vivid effect, as in this quote from the Washington Post: “There is no more devastating blow to the human psyche than to be transformed in microseconds from a healthy robust human being into a cripple. “ | 1 |
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disabled. | 2 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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