September 26, 2014 - 16:57
Handicapped or handicap stemmed from the mid-17th century phrase hand in cap. It was a lottery game in which “one person claimed an article belonging to another and offered something in exchange, any difference in value being showed decided by the umpire. All three deposited forfeit money in a cap; the two opponents showed there agreement or disagreement with the valuation by bringing out their hands either full or empty. If both were the same, the umpire too the forfeit money; if not, it went to the person who accepted the valuation.”(English Oxford Dictionary) The term was then used to describe to a horse race in which one horse, the faster horse, would be handicapped by adding extra weight onto the bottom of its shoes, and the owner would decide whether they agreed with the weight being added on or not. By adding the excess weight, the faster horse wouldn’t have too much of an advantage and lead over the slower horse. “Likewise the favorite in a footrace would be handicapped by being made to start further back than the others, or perhaps from the same starting point but only after the others had a head start.”(Snopes.com)
Now, when you look up the word handicap or handicapped, it describes the term as a circumstance that makes progress or success difficult. The denotation of the word throughout the years seemed to have stayed the same, but when people think about the word “handicapped” there is usually a negative connotation that comes along with it. No longer is the handicapped person seen as the superior and often better than their opponents or peers but now when one hears that a person is handicapped, that person is often pitied.
“Handicapped, disabled, cripple, gimp, retard, differently abled. I understand my relation to each of these words. I scoff at handicapped, a word I grew up believing my parents had invented specifically to describe me, my parents who were deeply ashamed of my cerebral palsy and desperately wanted to find a cure.”(Clare p. 83) Throughout Clare’s life, the usage of the word handicapped was used in a negative manner. He was never seen as the superior person who had this handicap to allow him to be equal to all of his inferiors. Being handicapped was seen as having an impediment. Instead of gloating like most people would have back in the 17th century, his parents tried to hide him and change him and free him from this handicap that he doesn’t seem to have a problem with.
Clare doesn’t see being called handicap or having his cerebral palsy have him described as being handicapped in a positive light either. This could have to do greatly with the fact that his parents never made it seem like a good thing. But, he does accept and come to terms with being described as cripple, which seems weird because both of them were used in hateful ways. In Exile and Pride, on page 82, he quotes Nancy Mairs. And in this quote she is claiming the word cripple. She says that she uses the word to describe herself and even in the last sentence she says that even as a cripple, she still swaggers. He precedes this quote by saying, “…we in the disability rights movement create crip culture, tell crip jokes, identify a sensibility we call crip humor.”(Clare) Although cripple isn’t seen in such positive light, the word is a lot lighter when juxtaposed to handicapped. In the book when he describes cripple and handicapped he says, on page 82, “Cripple. The woman who walks with a limp, the kid who uses braces, the man with gnarled hands hear the word cripple every day in a hostile nondisabled world.” (Clare) Now when you compare that to the description of handicapped on page 81 which reads, “Handicapped. A disabled person sits on the street, begging for her next meal… Seattle, 1989: a white man sits on the sidewalk, leaning against an iron fence, he smells of whiskey and urine, his body wrapped in torn cloth. His legs are toothpick-thin, knees bent inward. Beside him leans a set of crutches. A Styrofoam cup, half full of coins, sits on the sidewalk in front of him. Puget Sound stretches out behind him, water sparkling in the sun. Tourists bustle by. He strains his head up, trying to catch their eyes. Cap in hand. Handicapped.” (Clare) Between those two paragraphs of description of what the words mean to him, the handicapped people seem so pathetic and worse than the cripple people. And when putting it into context of how many people use it today, handicapped has a worse connotation than someone who is crippled.
I decided to not only use the English Oxford Dictionary and find the etymology of the word handicapped, but I also decided to use Urban Dictionary to see if why the author seems to embrace the word cripple but not handicapped is further solidified. With the etymology of handicapped as well as the current definition of handicapped, one would think that someone wouldn’t mind being viewed as handicapped, especially since the handicapped person was seen as the better individual. But, what I found on Urban Dictionary helped coagulate the interpretation I received from the text which was that being called handicapped was not favorable by the author. Some words related to handicap included: retard, disabled, dumb, idiot, gay, slow, special, mental, etc. Whereas with cripple, the related words included: wheelchair, gimp, crip, and sex.
Although handicapped/handicap doesn’t have a horrible denotation, the connotation and the hurt that the author experiences from not only the usage of the word from his peers but from his family helps me understand why he scoffs at the word and doesn’t claim it as he does cripple.