But Wow, it is precisely the vehemence that you show that has made the word handicapped politically incorrect.
I am also deaf in one ear (bobbypin in my left ear when I was a toddler) and it is a disadvantage. You work around it and it does not affect your life but it would be a lie to say it is not there.
For example, when hunting for wood grouse it is important to listen for the soft thrumming they do. If it is on my left side I do not hear it because it is too soft to register in my other ear on the other side of my head. When locating/pinpointing something by sound only it is easier when you hear from both ears. I am not making it up it is a fact of biology and the reason why creatures have ears on both sides of the head.
The fact that you are a great musician does not negate the fact that you had to assimilate the music in only one ear. You do not know if you would have had an easier time of it if you had both ears since you only worked with the one.
What I am getting at is that handicapped came to have such a negative connotation that people switched over to the word disabled. Now, THAT word has a negative connotation and people have switched over to differently abled. We hear that term all the time.
Disabled has now become the politically incorrectly way of describing someone who is at some disadvantage.
I think that we should work on getting people to treat everybody with respect and true courtesy no matter what they look like or whether they have the use of all their appendeges, senses et all. Instead we focus on the words describing the state the person is in. As if changing the word will make people change their attitude.
