The word "handicapped" originally referred to a beggar, handy with a cap to beg for alms", and "alms" was the Biblical and oldtime word for charitable contributions given on the street.

My dear wife, Esther, suffered an attack of polio when 11 months old, leaving her left leg paralyzed. When I first met her, she walked with a cane. But her paralyzed left leg has been broken 10 times, her right leg three times. She's been in a wheelchair for 30 years. She has made me sensitive to hurts of language and other behavior.

And I've been there, also. On May 12, 1998, I felt in our bedroom around dusk and couldn't sit up. I'd had a stroke, apparently provoked by not taking my blood pressure medicine regularly. Esther, bedridden, couldn't help me and our only telephone was in the next room. (Now we have two.) I scooted for 12 hours on my back to reach the telephone and call for help. I kept my head "clear" by doing mathematics, reciting poetry and Biblical passage, and praying. I spent 12 days in hospital and rehabilitation and I''ve recovered. But "been there -- done that".

Years ago, I created a better word for people with physical and "mental" problems: "parambient". Engineers use the word, ambient, for an environmental condition or measurement. For example, "the ambient temperature" oftens means "room temperature". In my lingo, to be "ambient"" means to be "satisfactorily integrated with the environment". The word "para" means "partially". So those who are "only partially integrated with the environment" are "para-ambient" or "parambient".

Elsewhere, I've said, "Thou shalt not attribute!" Please don't say to a child, "You're bad!", attributing an inner property of badness. Rather, spend a few extra words to say, "You're behaving badly!" Or the gerundish, "You're badding!".

But thoughtless people do this every day. "He's blind." "She's deaf." "That child is dyslexic." You're ATTRIBUTING IN ALL SUCH CASES. You can easily avoid it by saying, "He's a blind person. She's a deaf person. That is a dyslexic child"." ETSETTERY.