[adverb] Challenged is used to reference a person with almost any sort of disability. All links will be to COCA as it has more occurrences. A poor person is financially challenged, a short person is vertically challenged, a dumb person (not a politically correct term) is mentally, academically, or intellectually challenged (mentally challenged shows the highest usage and most increase). Other terms include physically challenged, ethically challenged, developmentally challenged, domestically challenged, and emotionally challenged. All of these challenges begin in the 1990s with varying success and limited usage.
- In the COCA these terms are spread differently. Physically and mentally challenged are in the top five of adverb challenge* terms instead of past 32 as they are in COHA. It also includes new terms including legally challenged, economically challenged, historically challenged, mathematically challenged, mechanically challenged, musically challenged, technically challenged, and calorically challenged.
Cripple* was used for someone who was physically handicapped. This sense is still used today but it is much less common than it used to be. In the last couple of decades the term has been used in the same sense in reference to people, but the sense has extended to reference organizations or systems like the U.S. health care system, schools, or the economy.
- Disabled or physically disabled are terms used to replace cripple. Physically disabled had its highest usage in the 1990s but is limited in use overall. Disabled can refer to more than just physically so the COHA doesn’t accurately describe its usage.
- Handicapped or physically handicapped. Handicapped is not strictly physical but its usage did peak in the 1970s when political correctness was increasing and its usage in COHA has since decreased in favor of other terms. Physically handicapped follows a very curve much like handicapped with a later beginning and earlier peak(1960s).
- Physically challenged [COCA], as said before, shows limited usage and only since the 1990s. Its usage has decreased.
Some people have issues of heightism [COCA], a term referring to those who prefer tall people to the vertically challenged. Heightism occurs once each in COHA and COCA in 1975 and 1990 respectively.
Ageism [COCA] is discrimination on the basis of age. Usually it is discrimination against those who are older. A few instances are in the COHA but the COCA has more and shows that usage has increased in the last five years.
- Gray hair usually indicates the old or getting older and its usage has increased.
- Salt and pepper [COCA] is common as the spice but also can also refer to the graying of a person’s hair, and thus their age. In 1921 and 1948 the term is used to describe a suit, but the first use in reference to hair is in 1954. Usage is rare in the COHA but shows increase of usage in the COCA.
An extreme case is the spelling of women [woman]. These typical spellings remain perfectly correct, but some women insist on different spellings because the words man or men are within the words and thus politically incorrect.
- Womyn [COCA] started in the 1990s and increased until the 2000-2004 time where it dropped to its lowest usage.
- Wymyn [COCA] Both databases have only one instance each, but the text is the same so it is only one instance (in 1997) recorded total.
- Wimmin [COCA] this last spelling is much more common but it’s more of a dialectal usage than politically correct. There are only a couple of references to the politically correct sense while the dialectal has been in use since 1840.
Honorable mention: none of these showed up in either corpus but deserved to be included.
- Sinistromanualistic: left-handed people
- Rectocentrism: “domination and oppression of sinistromanualistic people by the majority, who are right-handed” (Speaking Freely).
- Canine-American: an American dog
- Accommodationist: a traitor
No comments:
Post a Comment