I'm moving this thread to geekgrrl.. since it seems to be where issues conversation
has moved...
Language can be so anyoing sometimes... sometimes in unexpected ways...
Take for example a youngster who had difficulty hearing..
according to the National Association for the Deaf.. the term to be used is:
"Hard of hearing"
http://www.nad.org/infocenter/infotogo/dcc/terms.html
since "hearing impaired" focus on the disability and not on the person...
The "People First Language" folks:
http://www.modmh.state.mo.us/sikeston/people.htm
make life even more difficult..
rather then saying
George is hard of hearing.. you should say George has a hearing disability.
Well.. I've been born hearing impaired.. and damn it.. I'm going to be hearing
impaired for the rest of my life.. and it makse life SO much easyer to tell people
that I'm hearing impaired then ANY of the above.. when a teacher once told me that I
was Hard of hearing.. she had to explain what she ment.. I still don't quite
understand how "hard of hearing" translates to hearing impaired..
I know I'm not the only one.. I'm sure there are people with other disabilities.. that
would rather go with simple words that everyone understand rather then PC terms that
supposedly equalize the rights of disabled people somehow by not refrencing them by
their limitations.. their limitations are probably never going to change.. personaly I
think the problem with language and disabilites.. is the meaning people put into the
words themselves.. not in how they use them..
Take a crowded room... your tring to point someone out.. if there is only one person
in the room who is black or female or perhaps in a wheelchair.. should you take the
extra time it takes to use the PC terms to do so? Is it so important to say "The
african american over there" (when you don't even know if he/she is african or
american?), or avoid saying "see that chick", or (now I'm sure I'm going to get shot
for this) "that gimp", "wheelchair dude", or "handicap guy"...
There are lots of lesbian people who don't mind being called dykes.. in fact they are
proud of it... likewise gays being called fags.. or even faggots.. because they belive
language is what you make of it..
I think what aught to be faught for.. interms of people intractions with words like
faggot, lame, etc.. should be the meaning of words.. not how they should be used...
In amercia at least your not going to beable to stop people from using words that
offend/hurd/etc.. but you can certainly help control their meaning..
Yours truly,
Curious the Hearing Impaired
erms
Curious the Hard of Hearing
erms
Curious has issues with his hearing :)
On Fri, Apr 13, 2001 at 07:13:39PM -0500, Vinnie wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, Steve Kudlak wrote:
>
> > Maybe I should read more closely.
>
> Yes, you should.
> http://www.linux.org.uk/pipermail/techtalk/2001-April/003353.html
>
> > MY wonderment is that no one ever
> > asked what was the problem of running telnet.
>
> I think it's because everyone here already pretty much knows that it's
> cluelessness, and knows that there are people in positions of power over
> the use of computers who are indeed that clueless.
>
> > MY feeling is one wants to call something
> > lame just call it "lame".
>
> Because we coudln't care less about the feelings of a few disabled people.
>
> V.
>
>
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