Why is the phrase "the blind and the disabled" so used?
Is blindness not considered a disability? If, so wouldn't it have a bearing upon the rights and facilities provided to the disabled?
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Currant mystery
15 years ago
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9 comments:
Going by the dictionary meaning of the word 'Disabled :- People who are crippled or otherwise physically handicapped' , will definitely rule out a blind person as a disabled person. I guess thats why the phrase goes as it is.
shishir: if the dictionary says so! but then is blindness not a disability? I think it is very much a physical disability.
Look there can be different connotations of the 'blind and the disabled' as in it can contextually refer to a blind person who is also disabled (in dictionary sense) or to a person who's been rendered blind as a result of some impairment.
Well I may be wrong in my naive explanations but then this is just a hypothesis. Even I am baffled with the origin of such a phrase.
What you say is true.
My unease at the use of the phrase is that generally when we talk of a person being disabled, we do not think of only those people who are crippled or physically handicapped. What comes to our mind are people who have a certain shortcoming due to which their actions are hampered. Just had not having a leg or hand is a shortcoming, so is blindness. So in that case if the 'blind' and the 'disabled' are separated, it might have repercussions on the various facilities and concessions provided to them, so that their shortcoming does not hamper their progress on any front.
So all I mean is that why differentiate between them?
I guess english as a language has always remained a bit contentious on some fronts. It is at times more goverened by phonetics and ease in its spoken form rather than by the basic rules of grammar (for why do they have to say 'an MBA' even when 'M' is not a vowel).
So it remains a rahter inexplicable issue as to if at all there is any logic behind that phrase and if not why not? But who's going to fight for it ;) !!
shishir: very true :)
Manashi..
Heii...nice points u hv come up with...actually I never noticed it before...great!!
Another draw back of ENG...
Roy
Roy: thanks!
How often do you check your gmail a/c ? :-)
Nirwa
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