The Canadian Style
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- - Close Elimination of Stereotyping in Written Communications
- Introduction
- Elimination of Sexual Stereotyping, Correspondence; names and forms of address
- Parallel treatment
- Pronouns
- Personification
- Titles of occupations
- Man, lady, girl, woman
- Elimination of Sexual Stereotyping, Full range of human characteristics and situations
- Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping, Ethnic clichés
- Gratuitous modifiers
- Connotative modifiers
- Elimination of Racial and Ethnic Stereotyping, Identification of groups
- Fair and Representative Depiction of People with Disabilities, Full range of human characteristics and situations
- Fair and Representative Depiction of People with Disabilities, Identification of groups
- Neutral word descriptions
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14.15 Neutral word descriptions
Avoid language that suggests characteristics of courage, suffering, pity or abnormality, such as brave, inspirational, victim, special, incompetent or defective. Use factual rather than emotional terms:
- person who has lupus not lupus sufferer
- wheelchair user not confined to a wheelchair
- congenital condition not birth defect
- person with cerebral palsy not spastic
- Down syndrome not mongolism
- hearing- and speech-impaired not deaf and dumb
- non-disabled students not normal students
- intellectually or developmentally impaired not retarded
- seizure not fit
Avoid condescending euphemisms like "physically challenged" and "differently abled."
Use precise words when describing disabilities. The degree of impairment must be taken into consideration:
- paraplegic or quadriplegic not crippled
- visually impaired not partially blind
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