On Being A Cripple
On Being a Cripple
Nancy Mairs is a cripple. She knows it and she chooses this word to describe herself. But why does she choose this particular word? Why not “handicapped” or “disabled”? Why must she make people cringe at the bluntness of cripple?
There is very little that Mairs can control, not her fingers, not her hands, not her mouth, arms, and certainly not her fate, but maybe, just maybe, she can control the way you see her. Mairs perhaps chose the word cripple because of the way people perceive it, the way they look away or blush shyly, the way they squirm at the sound of it. Cripple is not a happy word, “disabled” is a happy word. People can look at a disabled person and smile at them. When that same person is referred to as cripple the smile tightens a bit at the corners of the mouth and a sliver of fear snakes into the soul. Mairs wants people to see her as a person who doesn’t gloss over the fact that she can’t walk. She doesn’t want to wrap herself up in a pretty little word like disabled to soften the blow for others. She wants them to hurt a little, to be a little uncomfortable, to feel the pain she feels all the time.
Mairs likes the preciseness that comes with the word crippled.”I like the accuracy with which it describes my condition: I have lost full use of my limbs.” She believes that words like “handicapped” or “disabled” allow people to distance themselves from her condition. They “widen the gap between word and reality” by giving the listener a vague sense of the person’s condition. Mairs subscribes to George Orwell’s theory that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts”, meaning that words like handicapped and disabled are poor substitutes for the accuracy which words like cripple and lame provide, and essentially cause the degeneration of our language.
Mairs may just be putting on a tough face for the world, wanting everyone to believe that she “can face the brutal truth of her existence
Nancy Mairs is a cripple. She knows it and she chooses this word to describe herself. But why does she choose this particular word? Why not “handicapped” or “disabled”? Why must she make people cringe at the bluntness of cripple?
There is very little that Mairs can control, not her fingers, not her hands, not her mouth, arms, and certainly not her fate, but maybe, just maybe, she can control the way you see her. Mairs perhaps chose the word cripple because of the way people perceive it, the way they look away or blush shyly, the way they squirm at the sound of it. Cripple is not a happy word, “disabled” is a happy word. People can look at a disabled person and smile at them. When that same person is referred to as cripple the smile tightens a bit at the corners of the mouth and a sliver of fear snakes into the soul. Mairs wants people to see her as a person who doesn’t gloss over the fact that she can’t walk. She doesn’t want to wrap herself up in a pretty little word like disabled to soften the blow for others. She wants them to hurt a little, to be a little uncomfortable, to feel the pain she feels all the time.
Mairs likes the preciseness that comes with the word crippled.”I like the accuracy with which it describes my condition: I have lost full use of my limbs.” She believes that words like “handicapped” or “disabled” allow people to distance themselves from her condition. They “widen the gap between word and reality” by giving the listener a vague sense of the person’s condition. Mairs subscribes to George Orwell’s theory that “the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts”, meaning that words like handicapped and disabled are poor substitutes for the accuracy which words like cripple and lame provide, and essentially cause the degeneration of our language.
Mairs may just be putting on a tough face for the world, wanting everyone to believe that she “can face the brutal truth of her existence