Disabled: What's in a Word?

Apparently, our vocabularies are declining. The number of words available to the average English-speaking 14-year-old is estimated at 10,000, compared with 25,000 some 50 years ago. Experts put forward various explanations: lack of enthusiasm for reading; the prevalence of texting; ubiquity of visually stimulating but verbally limited entertainments on TV, film and computer screens.

One word that some campaigners would like to see disappearing is "disabled". Sir Philip Craven, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, finds it completely unacceptable as applied to humans. He says that if a machine is disabled, it means that it is broken down, and describing a person as disabled, immediately establishes this negative association. Another of his objections is the way it is used as a collective noun: "the disabled" – as though a wheelchair user and a blind person are more logically connected with each other than with someone who has no impairment.

There are also, however, those who believe that it is very helpful in political campaigning terms, to have a word with which to describe a significant number of individuals, i.e. disabled people, rather than lots of smaller groupings, which are easier to ignore. This viewpoint has acquired more importance since the reform of the welfare system began: disabled people have been identified as the group who are hardest hit by the cuts, and a strong singular identity is an important weapon in the fight to focus opposition and get views across effectively.

Personally, I tend to be quite relaxed about vocabulary – I couldn't get excited about chairman/chairperson and other nouns which triggered feminist outrage, and not being part of an ethnic minority, don't feel qualified to express a view about appropriate descriptions of race. I have always believed that it is the attitude and intention behind any language, rather than the words themselves that carry the weight.

That said, thoughtless language can encourage sloppy thinking: when I hear someone say "the elderly", I think about the diversity of individuals I know who are of an age to be thus categorised, and sometimes feel a twinge of annoyance at the speaker casually bundling them all together in this way. The same would be true, of course, if they were discussing people in their 30s, or any other age, but, just as with "the disabled", the sentiment behind the word is often found to be patronising, when examined more carefully.

So, while I will do my best not to offend people with my choice of words, you won't find me campaigning to banish "disabled" or "disability" from our dictionaries. I won't be writing "DisAbled" or "DisAbility" either, though this is, apparently, the preferred option of some. "Less able" seems to me a useful description for many people who – often because of advancing age – are no longer as mobile/dextrous/acute of vision or hearing as they once were, but I know that to some people, the phrase is a red rag, so it is one that I eschew. I really do get the social model of disability, I just think it's more important to change attitudes, and the words will follow quite naturally.

What you think? I'd love to know how much words matter to you, what your preferred options are. Do you think that people who tiptoe about, trying not to offend, sometimes end up being more offensive?